A legendary story suffers a legendary butchering

Rating: 4/10 (17 November 2007)

I'd like to start of and say that the film gets 3 stars for the visuals, and 1 star for Angelina Jolie being naked the whole time she's on screen (a whopping 10 minutes at most). Everything else makes this incredible epic look incredibly bad. Whether it be horrible thick accents, tiresome dialog, undeveloped characters, or the horrible translation from story to screen, Beowulf takes the cake as the most disappointing film of 2007.
We all know the legendary tale: Beowulf answers the call of King Hrothgar to kill the monstrous Grendel, only to incur the wrath of Grendel's mother.
The plot itself is weak. It suffers from boring scene after boring scene, each revering Beowulf as a saint, though this movie transforms the epic work in a way that makes Grendel more likable. Kudos to Crispin Glover for creating a wonderful Grendel. His cries are so real and full of emotion. You're going to feel Grendel's pain. Glover and Angelina Jolie, who plays his mother, give the best performances. Jolie's accent is a little weird, but it works and she's definitely one of the better villains of 2007. I liked Ray Winstone as Beowulf, it worked, but his performance is underminded by the royal screwing his character gets in the script. Anthony Hopkins is really entertaining as the drunk Hrothgar. I hated John Malkovich in this film. How can such a fine actor become so annoying? His accent was horrible. There were no Danish accents in the entire film. There's Scottish, Welsh, and even Greek, but no Danish. In a movie set in Denmark. Nice one, Zemeckis.
The visual effects are definitely wonderful. No doubt about it. Zemeckis is the master of this kind of animation, but he forgot to add a plot. I liked the finale, and the landscapes were beautiful. Beowulf deserved an Oscar nod for this department. However, the big problem I had was that the movie tried too hard to make the audience remember it's in 3D. We know it's in 3D. We're wearing these stupid glasses. Zemeckis, you failed. You've succeeded, however, in turning a literary masterpiece into a cinematic disaster.
4/10 --spy