Ray Winstone
Beowulf
Search results
People also ask
Is Beowulf based on a true story?
Is Beowulf a real movie?
Who is Beowulf's Last Hero?
Is Beowulf a PG-13 movie?
Summaries. The warrior Beowulf must fight and defeat the monster Grendel, who is terrorizing Denmark, then Grendel's Mother, who begins killing out of revenge. Set against the coming of Christianity, this is the story of the last hero: in 507, a monstrous troll wreaks havoc in the mead hall of Danish King Hrothgar (Sir Anthony Hopkins).
Nov 14, 2007 · The movie uses the English epic poem, circa 700 A.D., as its starting point, and resembles the original in that it uses a lot of the same names. It takes us to the Danish kingdom of King Hrothgar ( Anthony Hopkins ), where the king and his court have gathered to inaugurate a new mead hall, built for the purpose of drinking gallons of mead.
- Plot
- Cast
- Production
- Differences from The Poem
- Themes
- Release
- Reception
Years before, King Hrothgar had slain the dragon Fafnir and brought back a golden dragon drinking cup. In Denmark, a demon-monster named Grendel has been raiding and killing vikings in the drinking hall of King Hrothgar. Beowulf vows to kill the monster. When Grendel raids the hall, Beowulf tears the monster's arm off and drives it away. Beowulf fi...
Development
Author Neil Gaiman and screenwriter Roger Avary wrote a screen adaptation of Beowulf in May 1997 (they had met while working on a film adaptation of Gaiman's The Sandman in 1996 before Warner Bros. canceled it). The script had been optioned by ImageMovers in the same year and set up at DreamWorks with Avary slated to direct and Robert Zemeckis producing. Avary stated he wanted to make a small-scale, gritty film with a budget of $15–20 million, similar to Jabberwocky or Excalibur. The project...
Animation and visual effects
Zemeckis drew inspiration for the visual effects of Beowulf from experience with The Polar Express, which used motion capture technology to create three-dimensional images of characters. Appointing Jerome Chen, whom Zemeckis worked with on The Polar Express, the two decided to chart realism as their foremost goal. Animation supervisor Kenn MacDonald explained that Zemeckis used motion capture because "Even though it feels like live action, there were a lot of shots where Bob cut loose. Amazin...
Music
The music for Beowulfwas composed and conducted by Alan Silvestri. A soundtrack was released November 20, 2007. Silvestri was largely responsible for the production of the soundtrack album, although actresses Robin Wright and Idina Menzel performed several songs in the soundtrack's score.
One objective of Robert Zemeckis, Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary was to expand on the original poem as it has been recorded. Beowulfis generally considered to be a pagan tale written down by Christian monks, which for Zemeckis and Avary represented the possibility that the original story had been tampered with in order to better fit Christian sensibil...
The film has been acknowledged to draw extensively from the philosophy of Freud, Kristeva, Lacan and Jung, as well as Žižek. In particular, the portrayal of Grendel and his kin appeals to multiple forms of sexual unease, among them the castration anxiety, the monstrous feminine and the challenging of traditional gender roles. According to Nickolas ...
At Comic-Con International in July 2006, Gaiman said Beowulf would be released on November 22, 2007. The following October, Beowulf was announced to be projected in 3D in over 1,000 theaters for its release date in November 2007. The studios planned to use 3D projection technology that had been used by Monster House (another motion-captured animate...
Box office
Beowulfranked #1 in the United States and Canada box office during its opening weekend date of November 18, grossing $27.5 million in 3,153 theaters. At the end of its theatrical run, the film had grossed an estimated domestic total of $82,280,579 and a foreign box office total of $114,113,166 for a worldwide gross of $196,393,745.
Critical response
The film was met with mainly positive reviews. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Beowulf received a rating of 71% based on 197 reviews, with an average rating of 6.55/10. The website's consensus reads, "Featuring groundbreaking animation, stunning visuals, and a talented cast, Beowulfhas in spades what more faithful book adaptations forget to bring: pure cinematic entertainment." On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 59 out of 100, based on 35 reviews, indicating "mi...
Academic response
Scholars and authors criticized the changes done upon the poem's story. Southern Methodist University's Director of Medieval Studies Bonnie Wheeler is "convinced that the new Robert Zemeckis movie treatment sacrifices the power of the original for a plot line that propels Beowulf into seduction by Angelina Jolie—the mother of the monster he has just slain. What man doesn't get involved with Angelina Jolie?' Wheeler asks. 'It's a great cop-out on a great poem.' ... 'For me, the sad thing is th...
- 2 min
Nov 16, 2007 · Directed by Robert Zemeckis. Animation, Action, Adventure, Fantasy. PG-13. 1h 55m. By Manohla Dargis. Nov. 16, 2007. You don’t need to wait for Angelina Jolie to rise from the vaporous depths naked...
- Robert Zemeckis
Overview. A 6th-century Scandinavian warrior named Beowulf embarks on a mission to slay the man-like ogre, Grendel. Robert Zemeckis. Director, Writer. Neil Gaiman. Screenplay. Roger Avary. Screenplay. Written by GenerationofSwine on January 14, 2023.
Summaries. In a besieged land, Beowulf must battle against the hideous creature Grendel and his vengeance seeking mother. This post-apocalyptic future story is based on the 8th century Saxon epic poem about the knight who battled a monster in a medieval castle.
When warrior Beowulf (Christopher Lambert) learns that the inhabitants of the Outpost are being killed by a monstrous creature named Grendel, he offers to help the king, Hrothgar (Oliver Cotton),...
- Adventure, Fantasy
