It's a PG-13 movie with a pulse.

Rating: 9/10 (27 May 2008)

I was absolutely sickened to my stomach after just seeing the first few minutes of the unrated film during the Grendel sequence. It's strange because I was able to sit through 300 with all the dismemberment's and only feel entertained, but for some reason the whole thing with the torn up dude screaming that bloodcurdling scream while tearing other people to shreds just made me feel ill. Of course maybe it didn't help that I was listening to an ICP greatest hits CD while this was on. Some of you are probably thinking why was I listening to a CD while I was watching a movie and to tell you the truth I wasn't expecting too much out of this film. It was my dad's idea to buy it. I took one look at the cover and thought to myself "... oh great, another sword and monsters, CGI obsessed fantasy movie to keep the nerds occupied." Man was I in for a jolt. This movie is not for children... especial children. Honestly I was afraid of getting nightmares and I'm 17. The footage is intense the first time I saw it. Let me give some examples; in the first Grendel scene the Grendel rips a dude in half throws one half away then slurps up the blood a guts in the upper torso then throws it down and the dead body looks like a deflated balloon, in the second Grendel fight scene he slowly bites a dudes head off then starts munching it, in the last minutes of the fight scene between Beowulf and the golden dragon Beowulf partially slices off part of his left arm to better reach the dragon's heart and you can see it barely hanging on by a thread. (That scene was just ill.) At least the film makers took this project seriously and just might have succeeded in making a classic. There are some unique and memorable scenes like when Beowulf beats the Grendel to death naked. Sometimes I wish I could beat a terrifying monster to death without wearing any clothes. The special effects are actually quite realistic despite the fact that it's all CGI. In the dragon fight you can actually see the liveliness of the dragon by the way the dragon's wings glisten in the sun. When the dragon set someone on fire it would look so haunting as if someone actually was being burned alive and in here lies the seriousness of this movie. It gets a lot of criticism because of changes it made in contrast to the poem. But the characters are so cool at play it off it becomes forgivable on some level.