Visuallly stunning saves the film from obscurity

Rating: 8/10 (20 December 2007)

I suppose I had decently high expectations for Beowulf as it did really look impressive and I enjoy period/historical films or mythical in this case. Beowulf will and is doing very well and for good reason. First of all I think the phenomenal Robert Zemeckis is really on to something with this style of film making and I think over the next few years we will see some incredible developments with CGI film making like we have seen with this film, Final Fantasy films, and Polar Express but Beowulf captures it and makes it it's own and does it brilliantly. The film is jaw dropping to look at. The characters are seamless (most of them) and it's just incredible the detail and movements and setting. You just can't even get over how stunning this is considering it is animated at heart. The characters (again most of them) are spitting images of their counterparts. This could lead to some great advances in movie making including the idea of perhaps putting late great actors back into films...controversial but very doable. Marlon Brando could return to the screen, Harrison Ford could do action films into his nineties....and so forth. So the unfortunate part of how stunning Beowulf is that the story lacks something...passion perhaps, a steady and intriguing story? I mean of course Beowulf is classic Urban Legend but there just was missing something....it wasn't the action, there were some incredible battles and sword play. Some of the characters lacked depth or story and just left you feeling like you wanted more from it.
Ray Winstone is Beowulf (as he tells us approximately eight times according to my count.) Still Winstone does a terrific job capturing this character. He's a man's man hero, rough, rugged, masculine, and very naked for a good portion of this film. And it's not sexual naked because he's battling Grendal (the beast) during his scenes of nudity. If I were Winstone I'd be quite proud of my animated counter part. Still he adds style, class and real rugged heroism to the part. I think Anthony Hopkins truly steals the show as King Hrothgar. His character is startlingly real and resembles him in every way and such detail in the face and his voice and emotion is truly incredible. This is a terrific highlight of the film and Hopkins makes the movie worthwhile by himself. Robin Wright Penn is his young Queen Wealthow and she is one of the few characters that has such little depth that she looks like a zombie through most of the film. She shows little emotion, even when she sings it sounds robotic and her character looks far more cartoon-y than any other. She was almost a pointless character except for the object of Beowulf's affections which doesn't even blossom into anything at all. If you look closely enough you can literally see Crispin Glover in the beast that is Grendal. He does an amazing job which is either in part to his acting and voice performance or to the creation of the beast which is hideous and yet somehow you feel pity for the beast and illegitimate son of the King. Brendan Gleeson is terrific and yet another one of those sadly underused and underdeveloped characters as Beowulf's right hand man. Finally Angelina Jolie's chilling voice and mysterious demeanor definitely adds to the villain that is Grendal's mother. Mostly she is used for pixel-ated eye candy...but they did a decent job on that as well.
The film relies almost entirely on it's two main battles. The first one is Beowulf's naked battle with Grendal which is an intense and well done battle and the second is the edge of your seat incredible battle with the Dragon in Beowulf's later life stages. Both are incredible and just grip you into your seat and leave you breathless but there is hardly any story in between the two battles to hold it all together. There is no romance or character exploration or any real story besides these I have mentioned. It doesn't make the film unwatchable at all...it just means that the film could have been a mind blowing ten but unfortunately sits around average good film for me with an eight. Still it's worth seeing again and again for it's stunning reality in animation, the amazing performance by Sir Anthony Hopkins and some really beautiful scenery and the winter stricken Denmark. Not the greatest film out there but a decent action flick for adults. 8/10