Entertaining, Insightful, Impressive, Beautiful, but also Cartoonish

Rating: 8/10 (19 November 2007)

I really enjoyed watching this movie, as did my wife (who normally doesn't gravitate towards an action/adventure genre).
Most of my comments will have already resonated with other's comment
The Good:
Well paced with balanced character development for a PG Action Adventure. Insight (not necessarily historically accurate) into the Beowulf poems, but definitely stays in the spirit of the myth. Nice addition - showing Beowulf as a fallible hero. CGI is amazing - esp. in 3-D as long as your eyes can adjust. Some scenes, particularly the Viking ship scene, might even send a shiver up your spine. Good use of Norse (or Olde English?) in critical places throughout the movie..
The Bad:
* Not enough Angelina :-) although her character, when she(it) appears, is very striking with her "suit" of liquid gold.
The Ugly:
* While the main characters like Beowulf and Hrothgar seem to have had MUCH attention paid to the detail of their CGI generated faces (esp. the male characters who look just like their reality counterparts), the more minor the characters seemed to get, the more they looked like they came out of Goth version of Shrek. Also, they apparently decided to use the same algorithm for the motion of ALL the horses in the movie - which made them look comically mechanical - straight out of a video game.
Conclusion:
Although the violence borders on over-the-top, it's still a great movie to see with your older children. It may inspire them to read the original poems. It might have worked better as a series of movies in a chronicle series.
This film generally ONLY works well because it is done entirely in CG. A live action version attempting the same effect would be entirely ludicrous. Its a testament to how far CG has come just within the last six years since "Final Fantasy"