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The online film magazine Combustible Celluloid offers new movie reviews, DVD reviews, film reviews, actor interviews, actress interviews, director interviews, film books and all things cinema related for the thoughtful and passionate. Online for ten years! Over 3000 reviews!

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Beowulf (2007)

Rating: 2 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

Mead Demon

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy Beowulf on DVD

Based on the 1000+ year-old epic poem and directed by Robert Zemeckis, this 3D, computer animated action film goes heavy on the gore (great gushes of blood spatter all over the "camera") and treats the sex with kid gloves; when Beowulf (voiced by Ray Winstone) first battles the beast Grendel in the buff, Zemeckis laughably goes to great lengths to hide the hero's manhood behind various props and sets. And Grendel's mother (voiced by and modeled after Angelina Jolie) has high-heeled feet! The 3D isn't used in any particularly interesting way, but though the realistic-looking people still have dead, soulless eyes, Beowulf is still an improvement over Zemeckis' creepy kids' movie The Polar Express, simply because the cuddly family element is gone. Despite everything, the film still has its ridiculously thrilling moments.

AskMen.com: Beowulf

Starring: Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, John Malkovich, Robin Wright Penn, Brendan Gleeson, Crispin Hellion Glover, Alison Lohman, Angelina Jolie
Written by: Roger Avary, Neil Gaiman, based on the anonymous epic poem
Directed by: Robert Zemeckis
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence including disturbing images, some sexual material and nudity
Running Time: 115 minutes
Date: November 16, 2007