Beowulf: Worst Movie Ever

Somehow, Beowulf received a 70% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I can only assume that they are very easily distracted by shiny objects...

The movie I watched was a clusterfuck of blind drunk Norsemen, zombies, blood, gore, rape and stilettos made of golden ooze. And while that sounds like a pretty kick ass movie, it wasn't, and I'm not even positive why. It wasn't the fact that they totally disregarded the epic poem the movie was supposedly based upon (they followed the plot loosely up until the fight with Grendel and then I think they might as well have been going off of A Handmaid's Tale for how well it followed form), because they totally just said screw that shit.

Perhaps they were just too busy to staring at how pretty the animation was to actually write an adequate script, perhaps it was written after the writer's strike began, maybe they just figured people wouldn't care. Obviously, I'm the only one who did from the glowing reviews the movie has gotten.

I'm not even sure how they fucked up this movie. It's the greatest hero of all times fighting monsters and then sacrificing himself in a blaze of glory for his people. How do you mess that up?! Oh, that's right... by not following the story, ripping off every action movie ever made (Star Wars, Indiana Jones, 300, Braveheart, etc, etc), having a bunch of actors put together wooden performances with an awful script. Was anyone inspired by Beowulf's speeches? I've never been less inspired in my life. The entire movie can be summarized in one scene where Beowulf is swallowed by a sea monster and jumps out through the creature's eye, sword slashing, dripping with gore and yelling "I am Beowulf!". There, I saved you the pain of seeing it yourself.

The message of the whole ordeal is something along the lines of "don't think with your dick", instead of the ideals of courage, arrogance and excellence that the poem is based upon, but even that message is muddied. Beowulf messed up and fucks Angelina Jolie (who the hell can blame him?), but never really gets punished for it in the end. His son goes crazy and almost kills some of his loved ones, and maybe kills some random soldiers or something and breaks a stone bridge, but so what? Beowulf sacrifices himself to stop the dragon, but it's too little too late... the whole mess is Beowulf's fault anyway and we're supposed to believe he got a raw deal for dying at a ripe old age as a king? It just doesn't mesh. The Norse ideals make for a much better movie, anyhow.

I could go on and on ripping this film apart over historical inaccuracies, literary inaccuracies, things that defy physics and common sense, awful acting, bad writing, but in the end none of that even matters all that much as long as the movie is exciting. But, that's the thing... it's not. There are fight scenes, but they aren't very intriguing... there are a couple of battles, but you don't really see much of what is going on. The saddest part is that I could forgive this movie all it's sins except for the simple fact that it's not fun. It has to be to work. It's simply sad when the best part of a movie is the fat man behind you yelling "Go get 'em Gay-owulf!".