An outpost is continually attacked at night by a beast known as Grendel. One day, Beowulf, a mysterious stranger, shows up and claims he will slay it. That's about it for the similarity to the original poem, by the way. This is set in a post-apocalyptic age, or a revisionist history version of the medieval times(I think the specific term is Steampunk). It is an awesome flick, pure B-movie goodness, and it isn't particularly aspiring to be anything more than that. If that isn't appealing to you, this wasn't made for you. On the production side, it has a nice look to it, with great lighting, distinct designs(those weapons are nifty! And not just the morphy ones that the titular hero produces a seemingly endless supply of... add to that the creature stuff) and genuine atmosphere(in spite of a kickass soundtrack consisting of a mix of rock and techno). It's well-paced and does not overstay its welcome(this is about 83 minutes before the credits... and on that note, guess what the opening titles of this is? Essentially those of Mortal Kombat of '95, they just swapped the text, the iconic background, and put lightning where there used to be fire). The action is great, if it can feel like it's cutting to a stunt double some(and man, is Lambert proud of his ability to do backflips... he does them as much as he possibly can in this), the choreography is well-done and it's exciting. This also gets genuine tension going, and is scary at points. The badassery is through the roof, especially with Christopher, but really, nearly all the males in this are testosterone-fueled stereotypes spouting ridiculous one-liners. The female lead is Rhona Mitra's cleavage, and one can clearly tell why her breasts were cast(I'm not kidding, she shows them every single time she faces the camera in this... in her sheer outfit, she wears the most clothes out of any of the women in this, which is "hardly any"). For the villain, we have a succubus portrayed by a Playmate who looks and behaves exactly like what her day job is(makes sense, no?). The practical FX are well-done, the CGI is reasonable for the time. For both, they don't rely on it excessively, rather they cut back and forth like before cinema could simply stay on a computer-generated visual, and with the anticipated effect - there is build-up to the monster. There is a bunch of strong, bloody, gory violence, disturbing content, nudity and direct sexuality. I recommend this to any fan of cool, dumb, fun entertainment. 7/10
Review of Beowulf
