Product: Beowulf (1999)
Rating: 3.0
The directors wet dreams of Beowulf
I have read most of shakespeare's works but this one I haven't yet. For this movie that can only be a pre. Anyone who even considers any link with the original writing will be appalled by this movie. But anyone with the intelligence to read Shakespeare would be able to see in advance that this one movie has indeed nothing to do with the literature and also would be able to open their mind enough.And if you do that there is a chance (especially if you are a not too stupid man with still too much testosterone in his blood) you may like it. The vision behind it is a erotic melting pot of weird gothic romance, unintentionally funny acrobatic fighting diverse (funny) acting archievements and a lot more. Basicly I think it was the director's wet dream version of Beowulf, and as that it is abolutely fantastic.The modern technology in a basicly gothic setting has its appeal definately. The bodybag is totally rediculous, and so is the speaker. But the costumes are often very cool. Sell all your clicheed fake immitation Matrix outfits, this is the way to go. I am still looking for the top of the princess to give to my girlfriend. But seriously the costumes were one of the few things worth watching.For the monsters the CGI department used some tricky ways to make what basicly looks bad have enough appeal, although I agree that the monsters are probably the least scary element of the movie. The mother in the end looked very awkward, expecting something like in Species this new body of the mother looks very unpractical to me, but in some way sexy, as is the most important element of this movie. The editing of the shots of here is terrible beyond believe, but there was probably not very much to begin with, anyway it is easy to see the whole new look of the mother was only done in CGI, and for the real action they only used images of the face with some make up, and a few props, truly B-movie style...As an actor Christopher Lambert is theoreticly a good choice to portray the character in the story. However in reality his performance is not toitally the way we would expect. Moments of more than wooden acting intervened by moments where it looks like he couldn't manage to keep a straight face and stop having fun about where the hell he ended up as an actor are all over the movie.The sexual fantasies about a Shakespeare play cannot be complete with a a certain amount of sexy women. The Princess as I mentioned gets all of the attention by her already mentioned outfit, but if you as a man find time to watch her face you may find moments of acting beyond what to expect from this movie. The monster's mother goes even way further, actually she is almost a parody of herself here.So what we see here is a movie made with a vision, no mather what kind of vision or whose vision, a universe is created. Attempts to do something like that always receive recognition. I wish I could get a chance to turn one of men's literary masterpieces in an almost mindless [...] of style and vision with a slightly erotic flavour, it must have been great fun for the crew to work on this.As a viewer, you first should really consider what this is, and hopefully this review helps on that. This kind of movie indeed deserves a few loyal followers (probably the people who also love Starship Troopers) and masses of people left hating. I myself will definately see this movie again some time, not that I love it. But it is inspriational in an artistic way and just entertaining to watch.