Robert Zemeckis takes a sh-t on classic literature.

Rating: 1/10 (19 November 2007)

I went in to see this movie with high expectations. Boy was I let down. First off, I would like to start off with a question; why was this film not given a R rating. There were scenes in this movie that made Austin Powers look tame by comparison. The only real comparison I can give to this move is an episode of King of the Hill where Bobbie's drama teacher does a reenactment of The Alamo where the heroes who fought and died there were drunk, cross-dressing, surrender-monkeys. Yes, the deviation is that bad. My biggest beef is that Beowulf is depicted as a skirt-chasing fraud who has trouble keeping it in his pants where supernatural women and other men's wives are concerned. But that is not the only serious deviation. In the epic poem Grendel was the son of Cain, not Hrothgar, and his mother was also one of Cain's kin. Beowulf did NOT have sex with Grendel's mother (who, to my understanding, was not a succubus) and did NOT father the dragon which would eventually kill him. Throw in the fact that that towards the end of the movie Beowulf is not even attempting to hide the fact that he is cheating on his wife with a girl young enough to be his granddaughter and you have ruined quite possibly the greatest hero in literature. My other point was some of the CGI characters. They look like they were ripped out of Shrek. So, to make a long story short I left the theater not just feeling disappointed but also quite angry. This sort of "my own interpretation" is the sort of thing I would have expected from Oliver Stone. My biggest worry is that those who have never read the poem and are unfamiliar with the story will think this is an accurate depiction of it.