Beautiful CGI but Beowulf fails to deliver

Rating: 5/10 (23 February 2008)

I have to say that upon hearing the about this new animation masterpiece from Robert Zemeckis (Polar Express) I was excited to see this movie. Just coming off of seeing Sturla Gunnerson's masterpiece about the hero Beowulf as well as I was excited to see another movie based on this epic hero.
The movie opens beautifully showing off Zemeckis' incredibly lifelike animation that will remind watchers of his previous Polar Express. The characters are incredibly life like that you can pick out the actors out so easily and entirely based on their character's looks. And for sure this was one aspect of the movie that kept the audiences attention was the beauty and incredible detail of the CGI.
But unfortunately this was not enough to keep this story afloat. From a cocky "comic" based impression Beowulf, to a heel clad completely nude Angelina Jolie who stars as the vengeful Grendel's mother the movie just fell off as soon as the main character entered the screen.
For followers of Beowulf's story you will find almost nothing heroic in the in this character. Beowulf's character yes was well renowned but the depiction made the character know he was aware of it and make it seem he could do anything, including a nude fight with an extremely mutilated Grendel, who also bears no likeness of a troll like in the original story as well.
The movie loses the audience when they are trying to cover up how "well endowed" Beowulf is rather than concentrating on the fight that will forever ruin the life of the main character, and the people involved with him. And because his character keeps this up respect for the character is lost throughout the entire film. Despite the fact his characters finally shows heroism in the last part of the film but by then so much disrespect has been lost for the character that it unfortunately doesn't shine true for viewers.
While the movie did hold strong performances by many of its actors, and the excellent theme of bargaining with the devil, it was hard to keep going when they director felt having as many naked butt as possible was more important than developing characters. While a good adventure romp and beautifully animated Beowulf fails to deliver in its plot and unbelievable characters.