A 6th-century Scandinavian warrior named Beowulf embarks on a mission to slay the man-like ogre, Grendel.
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disgusting, overrated, pointless
I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.
I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.
It was just too much...but to be fair I saw it in 3D. The none 3D version may have actually been better, but honestly I have no way of knowing.At first it was, well, it was wow. I had never actually seen anything in 3D, being far too young for for the first round of popular 3D movies to hit the theater, but my father assured me it was nothing compared to this...He also assured me it didn't make him as nauseous, and sometimes I can see where he's coming from on that point.It came out right in the first wave of the new 3D, right when 3D was becoming popular again and actually worth it.And it was jaw dropping even if some of the motion made my old man sick.But it was also too much. A new technology and one that was a spectacular in itself, but not exactly tested to perfection.It seemed like a 14 year-old girl putting on make-up and not yet understanding that less is more.Less than half an hour into it, I had no idea what was going on, the 3D was too distracting to even attempt to follow the plot.About an hour into it, the 3D got boring, and yes, still over-the-top distracting.By the time I left I had the feeling that I had just experienced something that I had never experienced before. I had the feeling that watching a movie on the big screen would never be the same again...but I still couldn't figure out if I saw a movie or not.
spoilers, but I didn't. there are things i really liked this movie, but they are few and far between. Overall this movie is just generic. It's score is pretty much the score of Shrek. yeah... Shrek... The movie that was parodying fairy-tales. That isn't a good sign for a fantasy movie. The characters pretty much fit under the general fantasy archetypes. The drunk and incompetent king, the brave but flawed warrior, the bitter queen, the good friend to the hero, the evil seductress of a villain, and so on and so forth. honestly if it wasn't for this movie's animation style there would be nothing special about it at all.But that's what i do love about the movie. It's animation allows for the monsters to look real when compared to the human characters, and the artistic vision these animators had for Grendel is perfect. No he isn't the monster from the story, he is the monster made for this movie. he's gross, speaks incomprehensible olde English, scream yells and whines, and generally is just gross. The dragon that shows up later in the movie is kind of generic, but he is well animated and well detailed.overall, Beowulf is an average 6/10. Don't ASK ME WHY THAT'S MY AVERAGE SCORE INSTEAD OF 5 CAUSE I DON'T KNOW. Just kidding I know I'm the only person that will ever read this review
Beowulf (2007): Dir: Robert Zemeckis / Cast: Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Robin Wright, Angelina Jolie, Crispin Glover: Total suck fest about a man of great strength named Beowulf who arrives to slay the feared monster Grendel. Setup works given an interrupted celebration that unfortunately didn't involve shutting down the film. Director Robert Zemeckis sinks with pitiful dialogue, formula storytelling, a laughable conclusion, and special effects that are about as festive as an outdoor toilet. This is a major disappointment for the director who made Forrest Gump, Back to the Future, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Ray Winstone constantly bellows, "I am Beowulf!" as if he's trying to convince himself. Didn't anyone realize how ridiculous this looked? Anthony Hopkins plays the regretful drunken King who pays for his earlier actions. It is the one passable performance in the film. Robin Wright basically sits and looks pretty. We can at least be thankful that she isn't yelling out Beowulf's name. Crispin Glover plays the monster Grendel. Finally Angelina Jolie as the marketing payoff as Grendel's mother who seeks revenge but not before trying to seduce Beowulf thus teasing the audience. Message of heroism is not evident in the laughable delivery but what is evident is that Zemeckis may need a stiff drink after this one. Score: 2 ½ / 10
A lot of things have been said about Beowulf that are entirely undeserved. Amazing, a masterpiece, the best movie of the year... Beowulf is none of these things. When this movie came out, it was recommended to me that i avoid it, because it was not worth the money. I should have listened. They should have also explained, that it was not worth the time. Allow me to explain. I am aware that this film is entirely CG. It was made clear to me within seconds of it. The poorly textured skin, the bad motion capture, the poor fluid dynamics, everything about this film stuck out like a sore thumb. Perhaps i noticed more because visual effects is what i do for a living, but even with that, no other film i have EVER watched (and i am not exaggerating) has EVER given me a worse case of filmmakers sickness. Many movies i have watched where the CG is noticeable, but its never brought me out of the story to this extent where i can't even pay attention to anything else. And don't get me wrong, i was still about to excuse it, hoping i would look it up and find a 10 million dollar budget, or perhaps less. But no, this movie cost a whopping 130 million. All of which was pîssed carelessly down the drain.The creators say it was a CG masterpiece. It was not. I've seen students that make better work for their first character design portfolio. They could have bothered to use normal maps or bump maps to create a more realistic skin textures, especially considering the amount of skin shown. They didn't. They supposedly used next gen motion capture. I was surprised to find they even used it at all. They could have done better with a decent animator and some blend shapes. With that kind of budget they should have used Realflow, with simulated fluid dynamics instead of the cheap wave displacements that don't even interact with the characters in the water. they didn't even use a Fresnel shader on the water, it was so freaking amateur. the only decent work was done in the design of Grendel and the sea monsters, and that was in imagination, rather than detail. None of the characters had life to them, the recoil of limbs, a sense of tissue, recoil, anticipation. The animators straight up didn't know the 12 basic principles of animation. Lets remember, this is 2007. We can't bash something that was done 7 years ago can we? Yes, we can. The incredible hulk came out a year later with only 30 million more of a budget, and a hyper realism that put this movie to shame, like child's play. Assassins creed II came out just 2 years later with considerably MORE CG elements, 3 cities worth including a variety of landscapes and only a 30 million budget, less than a 4th of what this movie cost, and rendered it with a considerable amount of detail, reflections and depth of field IN REAL TIME that came close to what this movie accomplished with offline render farms, of a major studio. Just recently watchdogs was released, with a budget of 68 million and graphics that pretty much beat Beowulf to a pulp, also in real time. And lets remember, these are video games we are talking about. They have poly counts to worry about, and part of that budget went to programmers, and level designers, there is absolutely NO excuse why Beowulf should have created the garbage it did with the budget it had, and the 4 or so locations it even dealt with. What, you can't even hire a dynamics expert? You're really going to burst a frigging piece of wood into a mist of stock footage splinters rather than the more realistic approach, 3D prefracturing and hard body sims? I could do that with just 100$ and the action essentials pack and it still would look better. You're frigging kidding me here.I could go on all day about the graphics, terrible blood hits, that weird gold coating Angelina Jolie--Angelina Jolie? Seriously?--but you know what, lets address what else is wrong with the film. For one, they completely ruined a classic short story. The dialog is so corny. The characters are all f*cked in the head, and they're not even good caricatures of scumbags, they're just plain unbelievable. And when i say unbelievable i mean those characters could not and would not exist under any circumstances and if they did exist and you put them into a room together they would not behave as such. One moment the dude is kicking his slave the next he is talking about honor and glory? Or the drunken king who's clothes basically fall off and then the next minute he's a fighter and a hero and then the next he's a poor man begging for help? I mean make up your mind goddåmn it. And the worst part is, in the story he's nothing like that. Beowulf doesn't f*ck Grendels mother either. And she's not pretty. And Grendel isn't a whiny little bîtch. And i'm not sure he even speaks. And there's this whole part they left out about ever hero trying and failing, and this epic battle as Grendel's mother drags Beowulf down under the lake that i was really hoping to see, instead the dude just basically jumped in the water and then hopped out in the underground cavern all Mario like, like he doesn't even need to grab ahold of something and pull himself out, he can just swim jump. Its f*cking stupid man. I hate you people. Next time the producers have millions of dollars to pîss away, give it to me. Or maybe flush it down the toilet. The toilet would find a better use for it.