The segment devoted to the titular hero and the actor who plays him is also the shortest piece on the entire double DVD set. Early on it was decided that no living actor could physically match the Beowulf Robert Zemeckis & co had in mind for this Motion Capture epic, so why bother. Instead they turned the self described 5 foot 10 inch, pudgy, middle aged Ray Winstone and turned him into a 6 foot 7 Adonis with long golden hair.
Bob Zemeckis reveals the TV movie starring Winstone he caught that inspired him to cast Ray as Beowulf and RW himself talks about always wanting to get the opportunity to play a viking, ever since he saw a certain Kirk Douglas/Ernest Borgnine movie as a kid. Click over the the Movie Connections page to find out which films they are referencing here. Doug Chiang also chimes in to talk about the evolution of the hero's design (original concepts resemble Brad Pitt and Matthew McConaughey).
It would have been nice to linger a bit longer on this subject, but apparently there wasn't much to tell, and since the title didn't allow for any of the supporting characters to be dissected, this documentary is over before you know it, coming just short of 2 minutes.
7 out of 10
Bob Zemeckis reveals the TV movie starring Winstone he caught that inspired him to cast Ray as Beowulf and RW himself talks about always wanting to get the opportunity to play a viking, ever since he saw a certain Kirk Douglas/Ernest Borgnine movie as a kid. Click over the the Movie Connections page to find out which films they are referencing here. Doug Chiang also chimes in to talk about the evolution of the hero's design (original concepts resemble Brad Pitt and Matthew McConaughey).
It would have been nice to linger a bit longer on this subject, but apparently there wasn't much to tell, and since the title didn't allow for any of the supporting characters to be dissected, this documentary is over before you know it, coming just short of 2 minutes.
7 out of 10