Beowulf (1999)

Lack of good storyline.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

This movie has nothing to do with the epic Nordic tale of Beowulf and even less about making good movies. The tale is some kind of hash tossed together with a steampunk sci-fi plot using the names and plot frame from the Beowulf tale. It not only rips bits and pieces from movies like "Highlander" and "Mortal Kombat" but stars Christopher Lambert from both those movies. It was like they wrote parts of the movie after they casted the role of Beowulf. I can almost hear the producer telling the writer, "Hey, we scored Christopher Lambert for the lead. Write in some Mortal Kombat and Highlander lines and clichés!". Ugh, not that it helped or hurt this stinker which I only give 2 stars for Grendel's Mom. Who is basically a babe from Bay Watch and Playboy. This is a good guy movie or something stupid to toss on during a party and you know everyone is going to ignore it.

What. Uh...This movie is so dissociative and messed up that I literally lost a bit of my sanity after it was over. I will never be the same person again. I'm trying to put my finger on what, exactly, is so completely insane about it... It's not just the hilarious techno music, or the "outside of time" medieval/Blade Runner/wild west/Highlander setting, or the weird CGI "Grendel" monster that looks like a man made out of animated sausages, or even the "Grendel's mother" monster, which looks like some Alabama table-dancer who grew claws and tentacles when she stayed in the tanning bed too long. All of those things are weird, but what's really the strangest thing in this movie is the acting. I simply can't explain. This script is obviously, hellishly silly, but the actors exude deadly seriousness through it all. Lambert is always weird, and usually kind of boring, but for this one he's gone into Dolph Lundgrin territory: I can't help but just start laughing every time he talks.I will give this movie some credit for being completely scatter-brained and crazy as opposed to conservative and boring. I'll always take a bizarre disaster of a film over an utterly mediocre one.Warning: if you are planning on watching Christopher Lambert as Beowulf, be prepared to spend several hours thereafter wandering the streets in some kind of nightmarish, hyperactive-catatonic daze. It's true. When I was done with my Beowulf spirit journey, I woke up in the middle of the Siberian tundra in a puddle of blood and milk. There was a dead wolf lying next to me, and I later found I had a handful of human teeth in my shirt pocket. My VHS copy of Beowulf was sitting on a hastily-constructed stone altar nearby, enshrined with candles and wilted flowers. The tape told me to walk. I rose and I walked.

OK the intro of the movie is a rip off of the one from the Mortal Kombat films (giant disk except instead of fire and a dragon its purple with a silhouette of Beowulf). This movie was so bad I was laughing at its sheer silliness and bad acting. Its basically in a stupid techno blah blah future about a guy, who we have no freaking clue about AT ALL HE'S JUST THERE, who decides to randomly go into a cursed castle (which has people living in it?)and fight a demon named Grendel, Now the castle's population is slowly going down (I'm guessing this was a plot device used because even the extras got tired of being in it), strange if you're in a castle whose population is being mutilated by a monster WHY WOULD YOU STAY? oh yeah because if they go outside the armada there would rape you, but hey its a semi-post-apocalyptic future right? So yeah the Princess is a stripper who's only weapon is a prison shank (wtf?) and all the soldiers suck at fighting (wow) except the captain who is a macho stereotype (think of Gaston from Beauty and the Beast)who also get gutted by the demon (wait its a demon?). Lambert is a terrible actor in this and I swear I can see the cables that make his jumps and flips possible in EVERY scene. Maybe the Director and Producer were really Stoned one night on crack, pot, and meth and they happened to be reading Beowulf while listening to techno and decided to make this abomination of literature. I personally found this movie funny and consider it a torture device to get P.O.W. to talk because the sheer silliness of it is enough to make you die of laughter. oh yeah Grendel's mom is a porn star, maybe thats why he looks like a leper with like 2,000 STDs. the CG in this movie makes Final Fantasy VII and the first 3 Resident Evil games look next-gen

Whoever made the film wanted it to be set up as a Fantasy Movie. I think Christopher Lambert is actually quite talented for an actor. The action in this movie was terrific. It is very much like Blood of Beasts. Unlike most movies, at least mostly everything took place in a castle and not on a battlefield. Most dark age movies tend to be going for the "Battlefield" stage. That is why this movie is unique, plus, the special effects and stunts. There a few technical things that weren't from the dark age, but that's the only thing I didn't like about it. Everything else was good, that's why I give it an 8. I've seen a hell of a lot worse movies, many.