Nicely told story despite its visual flaws

Rating: 7/10 (31 January 2010)

A monster Grendel is terrorizing the kingdom of king Hogarth. The vile beast must be slain and lo and behold, Beowulf, the great hero, comes with his men and he slays the monster by ripping its arm off. But the monster has a mother and as it also wants to revenge the death of her offspring, Beowulf must kill her as well.
Beowulf is well written and well told story. It has a solid soundtrack and some pretty bad ass action scenes as well some nicely twisted sense of humour. Yet I can't give it more than 7 out of 10.
The main reason for this is the way the movie has been made. The CGI looks great and the the makers have managed to bring a great deal of atmosphere to Denmark. But the characters seem lifeless and the animation seem very awkward in some places and there are even a couple of scenes in which the animation is plain bad. Ray Winstone does a good voice job, but there are some characters whose voice acting is plain and uninspired. Yes, I'm talking about John Malkovich here. And Anthony Hopkins ain't in his A game here either.
But as I said it is very well told and written story. I especially liked what they had done with Grendel. He's not just some brainless monster, but a pathetic, twisted shell, who is in constant pain. Even though he does terrible things you can't but to feel sorry for him because of the sins of his parents.