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Beowulf

  PG-13

Robert Zemeckis

View More In Action & Adventure

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Plot Summary

In the age of heroes comes the mightiest warrior of them all, Beowulf. After destroying the overpowering demon Grendel, he incurs the undying wrath of the beast's ruthlessly seductive mother who will use any means possible to ensure revenge. The ensuing epic battle continues through the ages, immortalizing the name Beowulf. Academy Award winner director Robert Zemeckis tells the oldest epic tale in the English language with the most modern technology, advancing the cinematic forum through the magic of digitally enhanced live action. A stellar cast is led by Ray Winstone ("The Departed," "Sexy Beast") in the title role. Joining him are Academy Award winner Anthony Hopkins as the cursed King Hrothgar, John Malkovich, Robin Wright Penn, Brendan Gleeson, Crispin Glover, Alison Lohman and Oscar Winner Angelina Jolie as Grendel's mother.

Credits

Movie Reviews from Rotten Tomatoes

TOMATOMETER

71%
  • Reviews Counted: 194
  • Fresh: 137
  • Rotten: 57
  • Average Rating: 6.5/10

Top Critics' Reviews

Fresh: You want to read Beowulf? Get the book, I'm not stopping you. You want bloody adventure with a brain, see the movie. – Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine, Jun 24, 2010

Rotten: Zemeckis has been seduced by the siren call of motion capture... Memo to Zemeckis: come back to earth! – David Ansen, Newsweek, Mar 28, 2008

Fresh: An excellent showcase for the advantages of computer-generated animation. – Tom Charity, CNN.com, Jan 4, 2008

Fresh: Not all of it works -- and not all of it works the way the target audience of jacked-up young males might want it to -- but the movie is hugely provocative fun, and I'm pretty sure that's on purpose. – Ty Burr, Boston Globe, Nov 24, 2011

Read More About This Movie On Rotten Tomatoes

Customer Reviews

The worst film of 2007

Let me get this out of the way straight out of the gate - I am not one of those dour English majors with patches on the elbows of my sleeves clucking my tongue at how Hollywood has forsaken the nuances found in a great piece of literature and turned it into vapid, mind-numbing entertainment. Beowulf is certainly vapid and mind-numbing, but so was the story it's allegedly based on. Back in high school or college or whenever I was supposed to be reading it instead of trying to make it with some chick, Beowulf was a dreary, soul-sucking chore that I wanted to be over as quickly as possible. In that respect, director Robert Zemeckis and the film's two over-hyped sci-fi scribes, Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary have succeeded wildly. To say I disliked Beowulf - the film - would be greatly understating the obvious. It stunk. It stunk aggressively and it stunk for what seemed like days. First, the oft-discussed special effects. I understand the wisdom of doing a film with ultra-realistic special effects rather than using actual people. You like the way Ray Winstone shouts but don't want to wait around for him to do a zillion crunches to get that Beowulf six-pack? You want to sort of show what Angelina Jolie's nude chest might look like without paying her top-off money? You want John Malkovich to be able to come in and do a terrible Danish accent without sitting through four hours of make-up each day? The computer animation brought Grendel to really gross life. But why go that far? Just because you can make a character look like a pus-filled walking tumor doesn't mean you should. And rather than spend so much time on that nonsense, why not try and make galloping horses look a bit more realistic? And why, if you're going to try and make all your other actors look better than they do in real life, would you make Anthony Hopkins look so much worse? There's just nothing in Beowulf for me. It's a soulless, joyless exercise in moviemaking. It's depressing and uninspired and in 3D no less! People have that in their actual lives. Who needs escapism like that?

Animated Animation...

Robert Zemekis has created a thing of beauty in his retelling of this most classic of Nordic legends. The image mapping animation format has created such convincing suspension of disbelief for the viewer that one quickly wishes to dismiss efforts to find the unreal in this feature, and must soon sit back and take in the awe inspiring visuals of the almost possible which so richly fill Beowulf. Film history has shown how easily an ancient tale of sorcery and swords can fall short of captivating the modern film audience. Beowulf is no such failure. Don't for any reason miss Beowulf!

Worst movie ever. Period.

This movie was awful. The acting was sub-par, as was everything else. Grendel looked stupid, like a rotting corpse that's mentally challenged. Making it all CG was ridiculous. And I don't care if it's a spoiler, but there's a part where he kills a dragon. He is trying to stab it in the heart. He can't reach the heart. So, he cuts of his left arm. Through chainmail, skin, sinue, and bone. This gives him a about half an inch more of reach, and the heart is about four inches away. But the sword goes in and pierces its heart and Beowulf falls about 800 feet and survives. But it has one redeeming quality, and that is that it is extremely funny although no jokes are told through out the whole movie. See it if you don't belive me, but you will when you're through with it.

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