Grendel

It's hard to say what was the worst thing about this show: the bad acting, poor acoustics of different portions, bad CGI, improper sets for the period, the poor script. It would have been nice if the script followed the original tale a bit closer -- there's enough tension and good material in Beowulf to provide a great deal of good material, and a better story line, than the scriptwriters could come up with.

And why introduce a strange new weapon like a crossbow that fires explosive bolts?

I see that this movie was made in "only" 21 days. It shows in the lack of quality. I'm beginning to think this is general (poor) attitude taken by Sci-Fi channel (and others) when it comes to making movies out of classic tales in the past few years.

What a waste!

Just once I'd like to see a version of Beowulf where it appears the screenwriters have at least a passing familiarity with the original poem. Yet again, after watching this Sci Fi presentation, I'm disappointed.

I'm not suggesting the writers need to understand and analyze the poem in Old English, but I wish they could at least try to read a translation in modern English and attempt to construct a story based on what actually transpires. The story is exciting enough; why add plot elements that are non-existent and ruin the story? What's wrong with being faithful to the text?

Grendel is immune to weapons of any kind; why introduce some super-crossbow that is unbelievable and could not have possibly existed in this time period (as correctly pointed out by the previous reviewer)? The fight with Grendel was Beowulf vs. Grendel. That's it. No one else took part in the battle. The only way Beowulf could have defeated him was by choosing specifically to engage the monster without any weapons, the mistake made by all previous challengers. Yet, in this version, Danes and Geats fight the beast and Beowulf hacks off Grendel's arm with a sword! Again, why couldn't they portray what really happened? Personally, I think a one-on-one grappling match between the two would be much more exciting.

Overall, this is a pathetic and abysmal depiction that is faithless to the true tale. Why add in a pact with Hrothgar and Grendel's mother that includes sacrificial offering? Why create extra characters, like Finn, that add nothing to the story? There was no love story in the poem. They couldn't even set the scenes in the appropriate locations (a forest instead of the swamp and no lair under the lake). They fail to notice the metaphor that Grendel's lair signifies – it's supposed to be underground to represent hell. Why not instead center on the symbolism inherent in the epic poem? Even my high school students last year were able to do immensely better when they created a short film based on Beowulf, since they focused on the themes and symbolism underlying the story. If Hollywood could create a film that centers on these elements and is faithful to the plot, then that would be a truly great movie.

This movie lost me with the crossbow RPG (rocket-propelled grenade). It was like someone cut and pasted a scene from Robocop. I half expected Beowulf to say exclaim, "I LIKE IT!"

I watched this because I like Chris Bruno from "The Dead Zone" TV show and he did his part. He chose a strange accent, but at least he kept it consistent for the whole movie -- unlike any of his costars. They kept slipping into all kinds of speech from old English to modern English, sometimes in the same sentence.

There are already many comments on how this movie is different from the source material. However, even on its own, this movie's plot is not good. It's just boring, which even the low budget doesn't excuse. Having a low budget means that you need to at least have a good story, dialog and decent acting. Those things don't cost much. Instead, they spent their money on half-assed CGI and some decent costumes and sets.

Life is too short to watch this movie.

I had to read Beowulf several times in high school and college for English lit classes. I'm gong to find my old books and see how far off the movie was from the poem.

Just to get through the movie (I taped it) I started doing something else. Rewinded a scene or two.

The acting was so-so. I kept thinking, okay, Ben Cross has found steady work over the years, but steady, quality work?

Like someone previously posted, the sets were the highlight. Don't know if the sets actually existed or were in a studio. Need to check that out.

I don't think anyone here would expect an Oscar nod for a Sci-Fi original movie, so let's keep things in perspective. This production actually had a budget of only 1.4 million, as you well know that's almost more than they pour into one episode of BattleStar Galactica.

For what it is worth (meaning taking the budget into consideration), It's pretty damn good. Sure let's all make fun of the CG monster and the fact that it didn't bleed even when it's head got cut off. But there was a pretty epic setting (Bulgaria), and aside from a couple bad seeds the acting was pretty good, and the Photography was much better than average.

Let's consider the behind the scenes too... "Script", and let's pretend the director had a bit of latitude. The direction was very good. Most people say "garbage in - garbage out". I feel given what there was to work with the director made the most of it and pulled it off deserving praise. And you don't have to even have liked the flick to approach it in a critical way like this.

In my opinion this is a great forum to discuss all aspects of any release. My only piece of advice is to please not react in a knee-jerk way immediately after you've condemned someone's creative work. Great constructive criticism takes just as much effort and introspection. It's really easy to say something sucks; people likely won't pay you much attention though unless you do it constructively.