Beowulf, the movie adaptation of the Old English poem, was a fun experience, especially as it was the first movie I’ve watched in 3D.

I only knew of the content of the poem from John Gardner’s Grendel, which is told from (surprise) the monster’s point of view, and that one pretty much ended with Grendel’s death, whereas the poem goes on and on and on and on, in the tradition of epic poems. This was also how the story of the movie was structured; Grendel is killed off relatively early, and isn’t really the main monster at all, his mother is. According to this table of contents, the movie differs from the poem in quite a few ways, but seeing as I’m more concerned with whether or not an adaptation is true to its medium than I am with its trueness to the adapted work, and I think it worked quite well here, this isn’t something I care greatly about. And apart from a very few, possibly demented, Beowulf enthusiasts, I doubt it will bother anyone else, either. I mean, Beowulf’s return to Sweden and the rise of his new enemies and new monsters (including the worm) there, while probably great fun in the poem, only take up space in the movie, as movies are more like plays, and usually flow better when there’s as few major changes of location as possible.

And the movie’s story flows very smoothly indeed. The exposition is nicely done, with the introdcution of Hrothgar and Grendel and Hart (if that’s what they called the meadhall in the movie), the arrival of Beowulf and his Geats, and all that. Granted, being a huge fan of the aforementioned Grendel I disliked this one’s take on the monster; it seemed more like a beast than an intelligent creature to me, and I’m not very fond of stories with stupid monsters. I prefer monsters with an plan (no matter how insane and/or ridiculous) over those who either just want to feed, or those who hear annoying noises and want to beat the thing making them to death. But aside from that, I don’t really have much to complain about.

And the action sequences were stunning. The 3D stuff might have been a nuisance at times, during the less action oriented scenes, and might not have worked too well with shadows, fog, smoke and fire. But all that was forgotten and forgiven when the action started. I almost want to watch it again in the normal version, just to see what the difference really was.

All in all an entertaining action movie, but not much more. I believe I’d rank it at approximately the level of 300. 7.5/10.