Box office Beowulf ranked #1 in the United States and Canada box office during its opening weekend date of November 18, grossing $27.5 million in 3,153 theaters. At the end of its theatrical run, the film had grossed an estimated domestic total of $82.3 million and a foreign box office total of $114.1 million for a worldwide gross of $196.4 million.
Critical response On the
review aggregator website
Rotten Tomatoes,
Beowulf has received an approval rating of 71% based on 194 reviews, with an average score of 6.50/10. The website's consensus reads, "Featuring groundbreaking animation, stunning visuals, and a talented cast,
Beowulf has in spades what more faithful book adaptations forget to bring: pure cinematic entertainment." On
Metacritic, the film has a
weighted average score of 59 out of 100 based on 35 reviews, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences polled by
CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale. Giving
Beowulf three out of four stars,
Roger Ebert commented that the film is a
satire of the original poem.
Time magazine critic
Richard Corliss described the film as one with "power and depth" and suggested that the "effects scenes look realer, more integrated into the visual fabric, because they meet the traced-over live-action elements halfway. It all suggests that this kind of a moviemaking is more than a stunt. By imagining the distant past so vividly, Zemeckis and his team prove that character capture has a future." Corliss later named it the tenth-best film of 2007.
Rolling Stone critic
Peter Travers praised the motion capture used in the film and argued that "The eighth-century
Beowulf, goosed into twenty-first century life by a screenplay from sci-fi guru Neil Gaiman and
Pulp Fictions Roger Avary, will have you jumping out of your skin and begging for more... I've never seen a 3-D movie pop with this kind of clarity and oomph. It's outrageously entertaining." Tom Ambrose of
Empire gave the film four out of five stars. He wrote that
Beowulf is "the finest example to date of the capabilities of this new technique [...] Previously, 3D movies were blurry, migraine-inducing affairs.
Beowulf is a huge step forward [...] Although his Cockney accent initially seems incongruous [...] Winstone's turn ultimately reveals a burgeoning humanity and poignant humility." Ambrose also argues that "the
creepy dead eyes thing has been fixed". Justin Chang of
Variety thought that the screenwriters "have taken some intriguing liberties with the heroic narrative [... the] result is, at least, a much livelier piece of storytelling than the charmless
Polar Express". He also stated that "Zemeckis prioritizes spectacle over human engagement, in his reliance on a medium that allows for enormous range and fluidity in its visual effects yet reduces his characters to 3-D automatons. While the technology has improved since 2004's
Polar Express (particularly in the characters' more lifelike eyes), the actors still don't seem entirely there."
Kenneth Turan of
NPR criticized the film, writing: "It's been 50 years since Hollywood first started flirting with 3-D movies, and the special glasses required for viewing have gotten a whole lot more substantial. The stories being filmed are just as flimsy. Of course
Beowulf does have a more impressive literary pedigree than, say,
Bwana Devil. But you'd never know that by looking at the movie. Beowulf's story of a hero who slays monsters has become a fanboy fantasy that panders with demonic energy to the young male demographic."
Manohla Dargis of
The New York Times compared the poem with the film, stating that "If you don't remember this evil babe from the poem, it's because she's almost entirely the invention of the screenwriters Roger Avary and Neil Gaiman and the director Robert Zemeckis, who together have plumped her up in words, deeds and curves. These creative interventions aren't especially surprising given the source material and the nature of big-studio adaptations. There's plenty of action in
Beowulf, but even its more vigorous bloodletting pales next to its rich language, exotic setting and mythic grandeur." Diana F. Ye gave the film three out of five, praising the effects and action scenes, Peter Bradshaw, reviewing for
The Guardian criticized the effects and sexual jokes but praised the story. Bradshaw rated the film 3 stars out of 5. Ted Alvarez criticized the story, gags and motion effects.
Academic response Scholars and authors criticized the changes made to the poem's story.
Southern Methodist University's Director of Medieval Studies Bonnie Wheeler is "convinced that the new Robert Zemeckis movie treatment sacrifices the power of the original for a plot line that propels Beowulf into seduction by Angelina Jolie—the mother of the monster he has just slain. What man doesn't get involved with Angelina Jolie?' Wheeler asks. 'It's a great cop-out on a great poem.' ... 'For me, the sad thing is the movie returns to... a view of the horror of woman, the monstrous female who will kill off the male,' Wheeler says. 'It seems to me you could do so much better now. And the story of
Beowulf is so much more powerful. Other commentators pointed to the theories elucidated in John Grigsby's work
Beowulf and Grendel, where Grendel's mother was linked with the ancient Germanic fertility goddess
Nerthus. However, there were also positive academic reviews. Philosophy professor
Stephen T. Asma argued that "Zemeckis's more tender-minded film version suggests that the people who cast out Grendel are the real monsters. The monster, according to this charity paradigm, is just misunderstood rather than evil (similar to the version presented in
John Gardner's novel
Grendel). The blame for Grendel's violence is shifted to the humans, who sinned against him earlier and brought the vengeance upon themselves. The only real monsters, in this tradition, are pride and prejudice. In the film, Grendel is even visually altered after his injury to look like an innocent, albeit scaly, little child. In the original
Beowulf, the monsters are outcasts because they're bad (just as
Cain, their progenitor, was outcast because he killed his brother), but in the film
Beowulf the monsters are bad because they're outcasts [...] Contrary to the original
Beowulf, the new film wants us to understand and humanize our
monsters." Andrew E. Larsen criticized the film for its changes from the poem, criticizing the characters of Hrothgar and Beowulf as well as Wealtheow and Grendel's mother, and felt the script to be "misogynistic". ==See also==