Beowulf... what the shit

Beowulf was on FX today so I decided to watch it. Hated it.

I read the book junior year in English and it was one of the few books that had a lasting impression on me. Plotwise, the book wasn't so thrilling, but for a story written more than 1000 years ago, it did bring up themes that accurately reflect some of the major flaws of individuals and societies in general so for me it was a thought-provoking and educational book. I felt that alot of that substance was lost in the film adaptation.

The character portrayal of Beowulf was especially disappointing. Beowulf is an interesting character, the flawed and fallible man, the hero who is incapable of being a king... it would have been great if the director had captured some of that essence and portrayed it more thoroughly in the film adaption, but instead more emphasis was placed on sexing up the plot than character development. The "flawed and fallible" aspect of Beowulf's character was briefly touched upon, but only through Beowulf's affair with Grendel's mother and Ursula (I'm pretty sure Ursula wasn't mentioned in the book... but man, if they had to invent a new character, way to choose the worst name), which is nice but seriously Hollywood?... you can do better than that. And Grendel's mother... what the shit, I thought you were supposed to be a hideous monster, not a seductress covered in gold.

The animated effect also throw me off. Maybe it was more effective in theaters with IMAX 3D and all that fancy shit but on tv, it just looks they don't quite know what effect they were trying to achieve so instead they made a hybrid where all the female characters have plastic and overly retouched faces and the male characters are still like their normal self and so when they have people of the opposite sex in the same scene, ie, kissing scenes, it looks as if Beowulf is kissing a plastic mannequin. Also, some of the effects look very futuristic, which doesn't sit well with the fact that this story is supposed to be set in the 5th century.

That's it for my rant. Just had to get it out there, worst movie I've seen in a long time.