1 January 2008

Movie: Beowulf

Oh dear god. The reviews have been kind to this movie. Too kind. The filming is kinda cool, the characters are 'cartoonised' (I'm sure there's a technical term for this) in the same style as Robert Zemeckis' last movie'Polar Express' - except it looks better, and doesn't have Tom Hanks.
Storywise, meh predictable stuff - even if you don't know the poem. Evil doers (demons) fought by visiting hero (Beowulf). Bad things happen. Offspring of satan. yadda yadda yadda.
The story was laboured and flowed poorly. Think Harry Potter (esp movie#1) bad. Pacing was highly uneven, and the script was something George Lucus would have happily used in StarWars. Yes, that bad. That was a surprise given Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary wrote it. Oh well, even they fail.
The envisaging of Grendel was great, as were most of the special effects. But it is a cartoon so you'd expect that.

So why would you see it? Well it has been filmed in 3D and it looks good. Not great (iMax kicks its ass), but certainly interesting and worth a peek.
Rating: 3/10. Drunk in the mood for a b-grade it might get a 5. No more. It would have scored far far more highly if Grendel was introduced by this:


Love, B

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