Beowulf = comedy of the year

[Ozone]

Alright, so, having read the translation of the original transcript many times, and then seeing the trailer, I didn't go into Beowulf with high expectations. Actually, I went to it for the sole reason of making fun of it with a friend of mine, and it really made my job way too easy. Yes, it is graphically stunning, yes it has ridiculous (and I mean ridiculous in an occasionally bad way) action, yes it has Angelina Jolie in it, but I really could not help but laugh all the way through it. In short, Beowulf took up two hours of my life that I'll never be able to get back, but, man, it was funny.

[Sonic#]

I liked Beowulf. As someone that reveres the translated poem.

It had a few problems. Mainly with the way movies normally do in adaptions, hitting people over the head with things the reader in me feels are better left as they were. The best example of that is the way they treat religion, making it an explicit issue rather than leaving it an unstated but contributing factor to the story. Another is how they shortchange Wiglaf. The storyline changes worked... they made the setting more centralized and connected the two main parts of the poem, even if they did go off on a bit of a tangent.

But otherwise, it was a good movie. It was pretty. And the action was good. And Grendel was... I liked how they did him, especially.

I think anyone going into it looking to laugh would be satisfied in the experience, but it's fine of its own accord.

[MetalFRO]

My wife and I saw it last weekend, and it wasn't that bad. I enjoyed the animation, thought some of the character models were pretty good (especially Beowulf's first in command), and thought the story was fairly faithful (if memory serves) to the original story. Nice tale of "absolute power corrupts absolutely".