Thoroughly enjoyed it....

Rating: 9/10 (15 August 2007)

... as much as any movie I've seen this year. I'm a big Neil Gaiman fan, but have not read the book yet (I have the comic on my nightstand - will start it now). Noticed that some fans were disappointed in the liberties taken with the story, but my understanding is that Gaiman had final say over the changes, so I'll give him the respect due the author and view it as another take on the same material. DeNiro was a hoot - he played it thisclose to over-the-top, but held back just enough to create a real character instead of a caricature.
All in all, it's been an exceptional year for fantasy (at least for me). "Pan's Labyrinth," "Children of Men," "Paprika," "Order of the Phoenix," and now this. The trailer for "Beowulf" looked promising, and the screen writing combination of Gaiman and Roger Avary gives me goosebumps. Just hope Zemieckis doesn't serve us up a bunch of CG-animated corpses like he did in "Polar Express." Honestly, the character animations in that were flat-out creepy - looked like they'd been made up by an inexperienced undertaker and attached to marionette strings.