Beowulf Review: Movie Edition

When exposed to Beowulf: The Movie, by my British Literature teacher Mr. O’Brien, like most book movies, I was skeptical.  Beowulf: The Poem is a classroom classic, that tells the legendary story of Beowulf, a man who develops from a youthful and boastful monster slayer to a mature and wise King.  The Poem not only tells a very exciting tale of heroism, and courage, but also connects us with our ancestors, through the mixture of Old Anglo Saxon English, and Modern English.  After reading the poem I was very curious about what a widely praised poem would look like as a motion picture. To begin with, I am not a fan of the Nordic style of entertainment, so after watching the movie, I was filled with mixed emotions on whether or not I liked this movie.  The movie is surprisingly very entertaining, but falls short of its potential, because of unnecessary graphic and disturbing gore, usage of animation instead of real time acting, and frustrating changes to the plot.

This movie is ridiculously, gory and bloody.  Death’s are unnecessarily clear, and in some cases push boundaries, causing me to question why this film is only rated PG-13, especially when both death and nudity, are visible throughout most of the movie.  In most of the fight scenes, I felt I was watching a Quentin Tarantino film, and not a movie directed by Robert Zemeckis, who also directed the child Christmas movie, Polar Express.  The fight scenes I found them disturbing to watch, and are difficult to look at.  Two examples are when Grendel the monster cuts his own cauliflower infected ear and puss comes out, and when Beowulf cuts off his own arm, to give himself enough reach to pull out a dragon’s heart.  Thankfully my back was to my fellow classmates, while watching the movie and no one could see me squinting my eyes in order to avoid seeing these gruesome acts of violence.  Some of the violence could have been toned down.  It is understood that an epic poem about a legendary monster slayer, and war king, should contain some violence. However, does someone really need to see Beowulf dismember Grendel’s arm by slamming a door on it, and blood squirting out of Grendel’s torn limb, or see dozens of people gruesomely killed by Grendel and in particular one soldier torn in half?

I was also not a fan of the digital animated concept that Beowulf: The Movie possesses.  The characters, especially during actions scenes, look rigged, and for some do not look like their voice actors.  The exceptions to this are except Angelina Jolie and Anthony Hopkins models.  It is comical that Beowulf’s model, which is very fit, is voiced by Ray Winstone, who looks very un-athletic.  The movie looks more like videogame cut-scenes than an actually high-budget movie.  I did not like this style of filming in Polar Express and I strongly dislike it in Beowulf.  The problem is the computer-generated imagery is not always consistent throughout the movie.  Characters when in motion, look very low-budget, and become blurry.  This incredibly brought me back to reality, and most important drew me away from the movie.  I would have preferred real landscapes, with real actors on screen.  This makes the film more relatable, and less fantasy when you use real environments, instead of fake computer generated ones.

The poem explores Beowulf’s heroism from his youth, to old age, and shows why Beowulf is the perfect hero. The Danes, also known as Shieldings, are a nation that is plague with a terrible monster named Grendel, who kills and tortures their people. The Danes are in need of a hero.  Beowulf arrives to help the Danes defeat Grendel, then after follows his own path in of glory and becomes King.  Nowhere in the poem, does it say that Hroghar the King of the Danes, is the son of Grendel, also the poem never mentions Hroghar killing himself.  Also, Beowulf does not become king of the Danes, like it is depicted in the movie, but becomes king of his own people, the Swedes.  Furthermore, Grendel’s mom is never mentioned as much as she is in the poem, as she is in the movie.  I also doubt that Grendel who is a very ugly monster, would have been birthed by a beautiful humanoid looking creature such as Angelina Jolie.  I strongly dislike when directors deviate from the original text.  I understand that they want to put their own touch on it, to make their movie unique, but when directors alter the plot, there is always a little backlash from those who have read the original text. The movie would have been increasingly better if it did not alter the original plot. 

The movie is entertaining, but the poor animation, makes the characters blurry and hard to relate with, because they do not look human.  The gore and violence, is too extreme, and leaving me bewildered as to why the movie is rated PG-13.  I would personally rate this movie Rated R, due to its graphic nature, and mild nudity. Furthermore, it is always frustrating when movies add or delete certain elements of the original plot.  Fans of Beowulf The Poem would definitely enjoy the movie more without the additions Robert Zemeckis put into the plot.  The movie is great, but could have been tremendously better.