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Beowulf

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 35 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 159 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Adventure | Animation | Drama | Fantasy
Written by:
Anonymous (epic poem "Beowulf")
Roger Avary
Neil Gaiman
Directed by: Robert Zemeckis
Release Date:
Theatrical: November 16, 2007
DVD: February 26, 2008
Running Time: 113 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence including disturbing images, some sexual material and nudity
Starring Ray Winstone, Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins, Crispin Glover, John Malkovich, Robin Wright Penn, Brendan Gleeson, and Alison Lohman
In a time of heroes, the mighty warrior Beowulf slays the monster Grendel and incurs the wrath of its monstrous yet seductive mother, in a conflict that transforms a king into a legend. (Paramount Pictures)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Cast Away Contact Forrest Gump The Polar Express What Lies Beneath Who Framed Roger Rabbit
GAMES: Beowulf (Xbox 360)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Zemeckis springs so many pow 3-D surprises you'll think Beowulf is your own private fun house.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Beowulf is a solemnly gorgeous, at times borderline stolid piece of Tolkien-with-a-joystick mythology.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
For the record, it's truly puzzling that this film has been rated PG-13; it's much stronger than that. The monsters of "Beowulf" have haunted human imagination for more than a millennium; the ones in this film will easily provoke a few nightmares.
Read Full Review >Time Richard Corliss
It's got power and depth, and two kings whose greatness is diluted by hubris, and a thrilling dragon fight, and the demon Grendel as a tortured outcast, and a naked monster who looks a lot like Angelina Jolie.
Read Full Review >Empire Tom Ambrose
It’s not a reinvention of the wheel, but in 3D this is an astonishing experience that borders on ‘must-see’, and raises the bar for what James Cameron is planning with Avatar. And you’ll be glad to know that the creepy dead eyes thing has been fixed.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Zemeckis has converted the epic poem about the warrior who slays the monster Grendel into a species of computer game. He employs the same motion-capture technology that he first used in "The Polar Express," to slightly better effect.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
We are not looking at flesh-and-blood actors but special effects that look uncannily convincing, even though I am reasonably certain that Angelina Jolie does not have spike-heeled feet. That's right: feet, not shoes.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
Not all of it works - and not all of it works the way the target audience of jacked-up young males might want it to - but the movie is hugely provocative fun, and I'm pretty sure that's on purpose.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
Beowulf couldn't be less faithful to the original epic poem, and that's actually a good thing for moviegoers. It's a lot more fun than the mythic adventure most of us read in school.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Regardless of the medium, this is an effectively brutal story of swords, sorcery, demons, and heroes, with an Oedipal hint or two thrown in for flavor.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Staff (Not credited)
The bolder stroke comes from screenwriters Roger Avary (Pulp Fiction) and Neil Gaiman (the graphic novel Sandman), who’ve turned the arthritic legend into sort of an Arthur Miller play in chain mail.
Read Full Review >Slate Dana Stevens
Could call Zemeckis subtle; but his style Well suits the poem's crude and earthy brawn. Comic-Con geeks and cinephiles alike Will gape at the resplendent imagery (But don ye specs, and see it in 3-D).
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
The story works, but I wish they'd teach these avatars to act.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Beowulf deserves to be taken semiseriously; its eye candy is mixed with narrative fiber and dramatic protein. But it begs to be taken frivolously. Effects have grown so exciting in the realm of the third dimension that you just sit there all agog behind your polarizing glasses.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Luke Y. Thompson
Beowulf may ultimately be viewed as a failure, but it’s a fascinating one.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
Director Robert Zemeckis not only deploys 21st century movie technology at its finest to turn the heroic poem into a vibrant, nerve-tingling piece of pop culture, but his film actually makes sense of Beowulf. In Zemeckis' hands, it's an intriguing look at a hero as a flawed human being.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
Although this version of Beowulf (the script, ricocheting between thrilling, heroic, and hilarious, is by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary) does take some liberties with certain heretofore undreamed of aspects of parentage, it's as faithful to the extant version as it needs to be.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
As dazzling a feast for the eyes as the hungriest eyes can take.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
People's eyes still look as glassy and dull as a taxidermized possum's. But if you're going to Beowulf to experience the sweeping passions that only real eyes can convey, you're missing the point.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jason Anderson
If the arrival of Beowulf is any indication, movie actors will soon all be replaced by lifelike, digitally animated facsimiles. The good news is that some of them might still sound like John Malkovich.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Beowulf is many things, but boring isn't one of them.
Read Full Review >Variety Justin Chang
For all its visual sweep and propulsively violent action, this bloodthirsty rendition of the Old English epic can't overcome the disadvantage of being enacted by digital waxworks rather than flesh-and-blood Danes and demons.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
Beowulf is all right as far as it goes, and it goes pretty far for a PG-13 rating: Dismemberment, “300”-style blood globules comin’ atcha, and a digitally futzed and, for all practical purposes, completely naked!!!
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
First and foremost a showcase for the latest developments in motion-capture and 3-D technology.
Read Full Review >Premiere Glenn Kenny
I like a good flying, fire-breathing dragon as much as the next fellow. Beowulf's excesses, though, are such that the film ought to carry the subtitle …But This Is Ridiculous.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Zemeckis, who blazed trails mixing live-action with animation in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," blazes not even a footpath here.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Manohla Dargis
The 3-D is necessary to the film only in so far as it keeps your eyes engaged when your mind starts to wander. Stripped of much of the original poem’s language, its cadences, deep history and context, this film version of Beowulf doesn’t offer much beyond 3-D oohs and ahs, sword clanging and a nicely conceived dragon, which probably explains why Mr. Zemeckis and his collaborators have tried to sex it up with Ms. Jolie, among other comic-book flourishes.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
As for Beowulf itself, it's all about the visuals, which means that as soon as the novelty of 3-D wears off, the experience has been had.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson
Ten years from now, Beowulf may look like the groundbreaking project that helped kill live-action movies, but for the moment, its uncomfortable jokes and fakey rendering of life leave it wedged firmly in the uncanny valley. (Insert your own joke about Jolie's astonishing animated anatomy here.)
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Owing more to the sword-and-sex-play fantasies of 12-year-olds than the traditions of Old English poetry, Robert Zemeckis' Beowulf will allow adolescents to have their cheesecake - and beefcake - and eat it, too.
Read Full Review >Newsweek David Ansen
The most interesting thing about Beowulf, alas, is its technology. It's the work of a man who has fallen in love with his toys, but I miss the wicked satirist who made "Used Cars." And the truth is the motion capture in Beowulf comes across as an unsatisfying compromise between animation and live action.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Jamie Tipps
Certainly, modern interpretations should add their own spin to an ancient tale, but in the hands of director Robert Zemeckis, Beowulf becomes... silly.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Beowulf appears so cartoony, in fact, that the academy just put it on the short list of films to be considered for the Oscar in feature animation.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Ambitious, overbearing and hollow; it goes overboard to impress, yet it never feels truly inventive or imaginative. At best, it achieves a level of clumsy camp.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.4 (out of 10) based on 159 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Grant C. gave it a3:
Undoubtedly the worst book adaptation of all time, and one of the worst movies I've seen. What happened to the amazing story? All they had to do was use the book as a script, but noooooo, they had to screw it up. If they want to change the story so it surprises more people, it better be a good change, not something atrocious.
Hamed M. gave it a9:
We should thank Mr.Zemeckis and the Anonymous writer of Beowulf for reminding us that: We father our own children of deeds.
Kitty gave it a0:
One of the worst movies of all time! I love the book and I was hoping that they would take more from it than just the character names, and lo and behold That's all they took from it! And plus there was a severe lack of clothing!
Jake H. gave it a10:
Obviously This movie was impressive what did you think? No Blood or guts? PaaaaLease! Great Job, Robert Zemeckis.
Jiaqi C. gave it an8:
Interesting action, accentuated by the absorbing and involving nature of the new Real D format. The characters were however, still as plastic as previous 3D offers and dialogue bland and corny.
Jim gave it a10:
The best real 3d movie I have ever seen. It is great that they have managed to capture the personalities of the real actors. The definition of an action movie.
Ira M. gave it a9:
Intense action, fantastic visuals, excellent story, awesome violence. thumbs up.
