Review: Beowulf

Dang, I haven’t been to the movie theater in a loooooooong time… Needless to say, I’ve been studying a lot recently and took this opportunity to escape the confines of my little room upstairs and went to see “Beowulf,” the new Robert Zemeckis film based on the classic epic poem.

Now, when I say “classic,” I mean it… At least according to the Wikipedia article, it dates back as the oldest written manuscript in the English language (AD 1010) and, as Mrs. Rahm and Mrs. Grupe in 10th grade were kind enough to point out, it holds nearly all the elements that we modern folk consider as “the hero story.” A hero that comes to save the people of the land from giant beasts when others can’t, and does it for glory. Also, and perhaps more important to Rahm and Grupe, the Beowulf character also included a “fatal flaw,” something that translates into nearly every modern hero tale. Every hero has his/her weakness.

I guess what I’m saying is that this is, perhaps, the original “hero” story…unless you count Gilgamesh, but who can read Cuneiform script, anyway? (…besides Liz, of course…) 😛

Anyway, so the movie was decent… In all honesty, watching the movie, I thought they added stuff to the end that wasn’t in the originally epic poem, but according to Wikipedia, it was in there and I just forgot…oh well… Either way, the effects were borderline spectacular – there were instances where I forgot I was watching a pseudo-animated movie. Some things, like galloping horses, could have been done a bit better, but for the most part the movie was a wonder to behold. The acting was pretty strong, overall, and of course, the story included most elements of the epic poem. There were certainly some liberties taken with certain details, but it made for an entertaining movie…

Something about it didn’t sit well with me, however…and I sadly can’t figure out what it is… I think I expected a little more action than I actually saw. They played up the “hero” character beautifully and stayed true to the story, but seeing as the movie was being compared with “300,” maybe I thought it’d have a few more action scenes. Don’t get me wrong, there was action in there, but the only “WOW” action sequences were at the end between Beowulf and the dragon. The movie was just about 2 hrs long, which was perfect…I didn’t look at my watch until the very end (usually a good sign), so I wasn’t bored, per se…but I still felt like something was missing… Maybe if any of you see it, you can enlighten me…

Regardless, you can’t fault the story. Any story that’s lasted 1000 years has got to have some merit…and considering that nearly every super-hero movie/comic/etc. is based in large part on Beowulf, you’ve gotta respect it. I still have a lingering feeling that I wanted something more, but oh well… It’s at least worth the rental, if not the theater visit…