Beowulf (2007)

	Directed by: Robert Zemeckis	COUNTRY USA GENRE Adventure/Fantasy NORWEGIAN TITLE Beowulf RUNNING TIME 113 minutes
	Produced by: Steve Bing Jack Rapke Steve Starkey Robert Zemeckis
	Written by (based on the Beowulf poem): Neil Gaiman Roger Avary

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Beowulf	Ray Winstone
Wealthow	Robin Wright Penn	½
Hrothgar	Anthony Hopkins	½
Unferth	John Malkovich
Grendel	Crispin Glover
Wiglaf	Brendan Gleeson	½
Grendel's mother	Angelina Jolie
Ursula	Alison Lohman

Review

Beowulf places itself in the long, congested line of ancient-influenced, hero-worshipping adventure/fantasy films that has surfaced in the wake of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. Still, despite being the umpteenth one, Beowulf is one of the best, owing to Robert Zemeckis' crisp direction, a fresh visual appearance that gives the special effects a shelf to rest on, and a story based on Norse history and mythology in which the hero, refreshingly, isn't a preordained 'the one', but rather a cocky, inherently flawed womanizer with a solid track record. There are familiar elements in Beowulf as well, but they are all well-portioned out by Zemeckis, who knows when to start and stop, and whose little stroke of genius here is to be just as interested in the characters' relationship to the supernatural as he is in these beings and forces in and of themselves. Because although Beowulf is a fable, and an exhilarating one, it is also a fascinating portrayal (if not a completely accurate one) of life in the North of Europe at a time when the Norse Gods were about to be replaced by that new guy from the Middle East. Beowulf cleverly shows how this shift altered moral values and the spirit of living – for good or (rather) worse. Zemeckis is finally back in form, yet again demonstrating his cinematic creativity.