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Beowulf

Beowulf

List Price: $14.99
Your Price: $13.49
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Shaming Beowulf...
Review: This movie was, in short, terrible. The storyline was filled with holes and didn't even come close to following the original epic written so long ago.
The actors almost seemed to be ashamed of themselves for taking part in this F-movie production. Simply because Christopher Lambert can wield a sword doesn't make him right for the part of a warrior as great as Beowulf was meant to be. Rhona Mitra was a waste of a character. As was Gotz Otto. Out of all the characters that were written in the epic poem only two of the original names were used. The rest were changed or omited unnecessarily.
The creature they came up with for Grendel was cheap and even silly to say the least. The rest of the special effects were second rate as were the actors.
The end scene with Grendel's mother was drawn out and sad.
If you want to see a movie that has absolutely nothing to do with the great epic of Beowulf then buy otherwise save your money for something better.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: bad
Review: This is a pretty bad movie. It was only 90+ minutes and it seemed like forever. The sets are pretty good and some of the action scenes are as well. That is about all that is good. The special effects are bad...laughingly so at the end. There is no character development and most of the actors don't even bother to act (such as the king). There isn't much plot, except near the end. You spend the whole movie wondering when the actual story will begin. It canabalizes the Beowulf legend to the point where the only thing in common is some monster killing everyone. And while they claim it is a "technofuture" its really just a medieval setting with some props forced in (like a loudspeaker in a stone castle). You'd be much better off watching The 13th Warrior.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: I want a Soundtrack TOO!!!
Review: The movie was entertaining, violent and dark (just the type of films that I like). It lacked gore and suspense and could be tedious at times; still an entertaining movie. The fighting scenes were very well done and the soundtrack, Top Knoch.

I was looking all over the net for a Soundtrack but couldn't find it. I think it would sell a pretty big number of copies if for sale (it could be compared to the Matrix soundtrack).

A movie you'd like to see if you liked Excalibur, Mad Max, Appocalypse, Matrix, Spawn, all movies of Sci Fi located on dark enviroments.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: I want soundtrack!
Review: The movie was a good action film. Its dark and dreary, a fantasy film. I liked it. The music was top notch but unfortunatly the soundtrack is not on CD.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: How about negative stars, anyone, anyone?
Review: If you want to see a true piece of crud, go rent "Beowulf". I actually saw the video version, but can't imagine the dvd to be any better. In short, it was what you would expect from Christopher Lambert. I actually rented this movie and watched it with my brother on purpose: we knew it would be bad. We just didn't know it would be this bad. Everybody needs a good laugh, and what the hey if it has to come at the expense of Lambert? The acting is truly among some of the worse in movie history. For fans of the series "Mystery Science Theater 3000", I am postive this film would have made it into the eleventh season line-up. It comes across as a strange sort of mix between "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "Mad Max", and a piece of crap. Lambert has one expression on his face the entire time it seems, one of utter stupidity. There are two "nude" scenes if you can call them that, seemingly thrown in to get a rating, I guess, seeing as they were totally useless and stupid. Waste your time only if you want a good laugh, but don't expect anything more than to be totally awe-struck as to why anybody spent money to make this.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: What a waste!
Review: Here is a film about one great story of the European cultural heritage, and with an actor (Christopher Lambert) that excels in that kind (he was great in the movies Highlander.) I had high expectations, and as the movie is very disappointing I can not give it more than 2 stars. The dialogues are poor, there is no depth anywhere in the film, the music is awfully terrible and ugly (pop / techno...), the ugly fighters (their look, etc.) do not belong to the dark ages or the Medieval times but to Mad Max, the castle (seen on the skyline) looks like a crazy, top-down castle (should I say postmodern, or à la Picasso?) the mother of the monster really acts like a porn-star (I really thought I was watching a porn-movie during the sex sequences), etc. all cheap stuff poorly combined together.

And the mythic, religious, metaphysical dimension of the tale is not explored, not given any depth in the film. Think by contrast of the richness with which John Boorman expresses the pagan worldview in Excalibur (e. g. when Arthur sees insects moving on the earth while Merlin sleeps, etc. to illustrate the pagan view that the Earth has a soul) (and Excalibur had gorgious music, Wagner and Orff's Carmina Burana, etc.) By contrast to Excalibur, the materialist version of the Arthurian legend (the one featuring Sean Connery, I even forgot the name of the movie) is very poor, no match. But here we have the opposite : the mythical version (Beowulf), which should have been very rich, is much below the materialist version, Crichton's The 13th Warrior, (where the monster turns out to be no monster, but man-made) which, inspite of its poor editing, is still much more enjoyable (but also bloody) than Beowulf.

And I even much prefer Disney's great viking movie for children, Stevenson's The Island at the Top of the World to a film like this Beowulf. Do not expect here more than one of those (cheap) B-movies that feature a monster, or you may be very disappointed as I am. I hope someone will attempt someday to make another film that will do justice to the tale.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Missed opportunity
Review: What a pity! For once, a kind of historical theme based in the Middle Ages was picked up by the film industry and what is the result: a mixture of Mad Max, Alien and the 13th Warrior plus Techno-Music and technical equipment that did not quite fit into the time. I wonder how the producers put those things together!

Anyhow, if you are looking for action-type movie without hoping to see mythical themes covered then you may enjoy it. But: thank god it only lasts for 89 minutes. Christoph Lambert is not as bad as some reviewers write but lightyears away from his performance in Highlander.

In conclusion: a lost opportunity to show something interesting. Never even consider buying this ...

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Only a good movie if you can understand it...
Review: I give the movie 4 stars...more than it deserves really. I'm a big fan of post-apocalyptic themes, so I already came complete with a general understanding of what kind of world the movie might be describing. Most people will not get that from the movie, as the history behind the world is not even touched. One can only assume that with the presence of modern technology in the medieval world, that the world is post-apocalyptic. Having no real experience with post-apocalyptic literature would mean that the viewer would stay confused for most of the movie. Some parts of the movie were very well done. I particularly enjoyed the props, costumes, and weapons. However, there were some very bad things. I think the plot and the script need some work. The special effects were horrible :( I loved the soundtrack, but the creators kept putting the wrong music in for many scenes. Driving techno doesn't go very well with quite, non-combat, moments. The fight scenes would have been a lot better had the fights been longer and more bloody. There was very little blood in actual combat..even when people were cut up and decapitated. Other than that, the fight scenes contained some matrix-like fliping action...which I love. The real downfall to this movie is the script and special effects.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: If there was a C grade Movie, this would be it
Review: This is worse than a B movie. When my fiancée and I rented it, we weren't sure what to expect, but we figured since it has Christopher Lambert, it couldn't be all that bad. We were wrong.

There isn't much to this movie, other than bad techno music, a porn star, and a bunch of technology that didn't fit anywhere in history except the late 19th century. The only thing the movie appears to share with the epic Beowulf is the name, and a faint storyline of a half mortal, half god being coming to destroy a creature that's wrecking havoc on a castle.

I love Christopher Lambert, but this movie did not do justice to his acting skills. He doesn't have any lines that are worth remembering, the movie doesn't do much to develop his character, and for being half human, half god he's surprisingly vulnerable. There's a short (five minutes or less) amount of time given to why he's half human, half god, and why he's there to defeat the Grendal.

The rest of the characters are pretty flat, even Kyra (Rhona Mitra) and Grendal's Mother (Layla Roberts). There isn't anything special about either of the them, and the only thing Layla Roberts brings to the film are a few dream sequences where she gets to act sexy and porn star like, and Rhona Mitra really doesn't add anything.

Beowulf really turned out to be a pretty one-dimensional movie, with a lot of bad techno that really didn't fit. Add in one porn star, some technology that's centuries before it's time, lots of people who haven't been in a lot of well known movies, and some sword fighting, and you have a step below B grade movie.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not as good as the "book"
Review: This movie is based very loosely on the the old poem but is still satisfactory.

Some parts of the film show depictions of TECHNOLOGY that wasn't supposed to have been invented yet.

The cast includes Christopher Lambert as the role of Beowulf but in my opinionnis not the best person for this role. Someday I hope there will be a movie version that follows the lines of the original story more accurately


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