Robert Zemeckis; "What would have taken us two days, we shot in two hours..."

Rating: Null/10 (4 May 2008)

... or words to that effect, and, to be exceedingly honest, that scene and all the rest look like they were shot in two hours. That's no compliment.
Admittedly, in the intermediate long run, this is "the future" of movies. Even so, Zemeckis really put a chagrin on my face. I could picture this film being shot on location in Sweden or Norway, with real actors and real sets. Admittedly this film was engineered for the IMAX format, and so it was geared for that kind of big-splashy entertainment, but, even so, again, to repeat, I simply could not get away from the sense that the real tale could have been told without all the CGI.
When I heard about this project I was hoping someone would do something better than the version that was shot in Iceland, and released a year or two before. Visually, the IMAX version is far more impressive, but artistically falls flat as a convincing piece of entertainment. If you want to shoot your scenes in two-hours, and crank out this kind of film, then more power to you. Personally, I would advise against it. The end result speaks for itself.
The other thing about this film was the writing. The story execution was fairly cliché, and not just because it's a classic tale. No. It's because Zemeckis, for whatever reason, tried to make this tale and the film more within the reach of the mainstream audience. An admirable effort, though probably more understandable given the fact that the film was aimed at the D&D/Lord-of-the-Rings audience than classic myth and/or historical film aficionados.
The Beowulf tale has intrigued many directors, and someday, someone, somewhere, will get it right. The best version or iteration of the tale I've ever seen on the big screen was the screen adaptation of Chriton's "Eaters of the Dead" tale. A real sense of realism combined with a historical context and heroism. That, verse this tale which sits solidly in the realm of fantasy.
I wasn't too interested in seeing the film, but after thumbing through the conceptual art book, and thinking to myself "This looks really good..." Well, just as you can't judge a book by its cover, you can't judge a film by its published conceptual art. And again, I'm not really baffled so much as chagrined that another version of the Norse myth has missed its mark, particularly when the art in the book looked far superior than the final product; i.e. the visual material within the film itself.
But, maybe someday someone will really run with this tale. Until then, I'd recommend avoiding this film. It's worth seeing once, but that's about it.