Real Reviews - Beowulf HD DVD

Despite having read Beowulf as part of the English Lit. 101 curriculum back in the day, like many coming to this film, I knew precious little about the Beowulf legend. I didn’t expect this Robert Zemeckis film to be historically or factually accurate, instead, I knew the film would be loosely based on the English epic poem from the Middle Ages. What I wasn’t expecting, though, was to be thoroughly entertained. Happily, Beowulf was a grand adventure and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Beowulf is an animated film, but not in the traditional Disney sense of animation, nor in the modern computer-animated method of Pixar. Instead, it can best be described as in the mode of the films The Polar Express and 300. If I was to hazard a guess, I would say that live action sequences were filmed and then they were “animated” by computer. What results is a highly detailed and life-like animated movie. In a word, the result of this technique is amazing.

The story of Beowulf as interpreted in this film goes something like this: a fierce monster named Grendel is wrecking havoc on King Hrothgar. Enter Beowulf and his troops from across the sea. Soon Beowulf fights Grendel, becomes King, strikes a “deal” with Grendel’s mother, and finally fights a fire-breathing dragon. Of course there are several subplots to make things interesting and a good bit of characterization to help us identify with our hero.

I particularly enjoyed the adapted screenplay as the narrative of events flowed seamlessly from the three major “chapters.” A good bit of embellishment is employed to help smooth out some rough parts in the plot from the original Old-English poem, and I think they are suitable solutions.

I watched Beowulf from the 2-disc HD DVD set and was thoroughly satisfied by the PQ. To my unqualified eyes, the picture was as close to perfect as I’ve seen on HD disc. I would have to say that Beowulf is top-tier picture quality. I listened to the Dolby Digital Plus audio track, and I think it pretty good as well. I’m not sure why there was not a lossless track offered, but the 5.1 Dolby was adequate.

The second disc includes a ton of documentaries and a commentary track. The set makes use of web-enabled features to download updates and a pop-up profile menu of the main characters.

Rating: 8

Source Chuck’s Movie Reviews

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