This was my first exposure to Beowulf, so I didn't find my views of the film coloured by the closeness (or lack thereof) of the plot or anything of that sort. Just had to point that out since I find peoples reviews of adaptations are usually heavily based on source material. First thing I want to point out is that the "futuristic setting" barely comes into play. If you're expecting a big sci-fi film, or avoiding the film because of the sci-fi you should know that the only real futuristic elements are a high tech telescope, a castle that doesn't even look like anything, and the pizza cutter of doom wielded by one of the extras. I suppose the soundtrack gives it a sci-fi type feel, since it makes use of a lot of techno. Unfortunately I found the soundtrack quite uneven. Some of it was good and suited to the scene, some of it was so bad I turned on subtitles and muted my TV. Most of the soundtrack just had me thinking "do I know this song or did they just rip off a song I know?" The music wasn't the only uneven thing though, some of the acting in this film was atrocious. Lambert manages to keep his wry charm, Rhona Mitra was quite impressive, and Layla Roberts was good at what little she had to work with. Everyone else ran the spectrum from mediocre (the king... was he a king... I was kinda lost on that) to something that looked like the role was filled by the first hobo they could find (the assistant weapons master). Fight choreography was sadly lacking, so don't expect an awesome action flick. The monsters were kind of lame, so don't count on oohing and aahing at the effects. In truth, this film had the potential to be very great as a bad film but the few descent actors and good bits to the soundtrack raised the bar so it was mostly just bad. Personally, I like Christopher Lambert and I like bad movies, so I liked it... just not as much as I could have with a bit of tweaking.
