Sunday 8th April 2012Director: Robert Zemeckis
Year: 2007
Stars: Ray Winstone, Robin Wright, Anthony Hopkins, Angelina Jolie
Well, this was better than I was expecting. I've wanted to watch Beowulf for ages because of the interesting choice of using animation rather than live action. But this didn't mean I was necessarily expecting a good plot...
It turns out I was wrong. Half an hour in, I was paying far less attention to the animation than the actual plot. I don't know how close the movie is to the original story (I've never read it properly - the old English language is, to put it mildly, rather hard), but the plot feels, for the most part, too good/ ridiculous/ mad (fighting nine sea dragons anyone?) not to follow the original story in at least most respects.
That's not to say that making Ray Winstone really rather handsome isn't a little off-putting. There were a number of times when I thought "why didn't they just cast Sean Bean for this role?", but then I can understand why they wanted to use the harshness of Winstone's voice. Winstone plays Beowulf, the titular great warrior who comes to save Hrothgar (a Danish King, played by Hopkins), and his town from Grendell, a troll who is terrorising them.
Far more enjoyable than anticipated, and not a bad movie at all.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
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