A hero steps forth, proclaiming his fame and his name. Beowulf! Slayer of monsters. Defender of the realm. He will kill the voracious beast ravaging the Viking land. He will claim gold and kingdom as his reward. But will his unchecked ambition ultimately demand a terrible toll of him? Ray Winstone plays the heroic title role, and Angelina Jolie portrays the seductive mother of monsters in this epic tale set in a time of demons and dragons, warriors and temptresses...

Beowulf sees a huge leap forward in the motion capture technology that Robert Zemeckis originally used back in 2004 for The Polar Express. Ray Winstone plays the heroic title role, Angelina Jolie portrays the seductive mother of monsters, and Anthony Hopkins, Robin Wright Penn, John Malkovich and other well known and respected actors also help bring this legend to life.

The Director's Cut offers fans a never-before-seen version of the film which features more gore, blood and violence and presents the film the way Zemeckis intended.

The story is fairly straight forward (even if the writers have twisted the narrative a little in order to make the action flow a little more smoothly). King Hrothgar of Denmark is at his wits end. A giant deformed monster, called Grendel, has laid waste to Hrothgar's once proud kingdom. He lets it be known that he will shower, with riches aplenty, any man who can rid his kingdom of this beast. Beowulf, and his men, arrive in Denmark and promise to rid Hrothgar of his problem, but the cost will be high to Beowulf, especially when he discovers that Hrothgar has a secret he is desperate to keep hidden.

The animation in this movie has to be seen to be believed, although, I was a little surprised to see that all of the characters have been designed to look exactly like the actors who portray them. Well... all except Winstone - who is about as far removed from the Beowulf character as you can get (he's not exactly tall or muscular and he certainly doesn't have long flowing blond hair). I thought that it would have been more interesting if Zemeckis had instead created a different facial look for each of the characters. Even Grendel looks like Crispin Glover, which is a little bizarre.

There are no extras on the first disc, but disc two contains: A Hero's Journey: The Making of Beowulf (24 minutes behind the scenes featurette that shows the actors getting ready for the first day of shooting); Beowulf: Mapping the Journey Production Pods Gallery (10 x 2 min featurettes that look at various aspects of the motion capture process); The Origins of Beowulf (5 min 11 sec look at the origins of the original Beowulf story and how the writers of the film have changed some aspects to make the movie slot together better); Beasts of Burden: Designing the Creatures of Beowulf (6 min 54 sec examination of the various monsters in the movie); The Art of Beowulf (5 min 23 featurette that looks at the original artists sketches and how they created the world that Beowulf lives in); Creating the Ultimate Beowulf (2 min featurette that looks at Ray Winstone and his history with the project); and Additional Scenes (11 min 35 sec worth of additional scenes - all of which were obviously cut from the movie way before they were fully rendered. The end result is a variety of rather rough animation scenes).

The biggest problem with extras on movie like this is that 90% of the footage is of actors wearing motion capture suits and standing around in a very bare studio. While this is interesting to begin with, it soon gets a little tiresome.

To be honest the extras would have fit comfortably onto the first disc, so it's a bit of a cheek that Warner Home Video are trying to squeeze more money out of its customers by including some featurettes, that you'll watch once only, and yet failing to provide an audio commentary. On the two-disc edition we are informed that the movie includes "bolder, never-before-seen images". Now, while I get the "never-before-seen" part, I am scratching my head to work out what exactly "bolder" means. As the whole movie exists inside a computer there's no reason why this release should be "bolder" - unless, of course, they mean that the images will look better on your DVD player than at the cinema where the CGI was transferred to film. Or maybe "bolder" refers to the more violent and gory scenes that were cut from the original version.

I've no idea what the difference between the Theatrical and Director's Cut is as I've only seen the Director's Cut. But, to be perfectly honest, I think I'd save myself a little cash and purchase the single disc release.

8

Darren Rea