SUMMARY:

In ancient Denmark, King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) puts out the word of a fabulous reward to the hero who can kill the horrible monster Grendel (Crispin Glover), who terrorizes his kingdom and has the bad habit of crashing his mead parties and killing most of the guests. Rising to the occasion is the brave Beowulf and his band of hearty warriors.

STEVE SAYS:

Having read some pretty tough reviews for BEOWULF, I had steeled myself for the worst. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the film is nicely paced, has some dazzling visuals and a couple of gripping action set pieces.

Much of the criticism of BEOWULF centers around director Robert Zemeckis’ decision to use performance capture, as he did in 2004’s POLAR EXPRESS. The technique has been improved upon since then, but it’s not yet been perfected. Most people agreed that the characters in POLAR EXPRESS were “dead-eyed.” It’s better this time out, but there is still a problem with the eyes, with vitrtually all the film’s characters looking as though they are blind people. These just don’t register as eyes that are seeing anything.

While research continues in the ongoing effort to create photo-realistic human beings in the computer, the greater question is: Why bother? Why go to such a gargantuan effort to animate totally realistic human beings when you can just use...actual human beings? What a concept! If Zemeckis had simply inserted the images of the live actors into his computer-generated backgrounds and sets, as was done in this year’s early hit, THE 300, he could have avoided all the problems that performance capture technology has yet to master. Some of the hyperbole surrounding BEOWULF touts it as “the future of filmmaking.” I don’t buy it. Why work so hard to replace actors? You’ll always need them for voice performances anyway, so why not just photograph them as we always have? Actors, particularly good ones like Sir Anthony Hopkins, act with every inch of their bodies, including and perhaps most importantly, the eyes. Hopkins’ performance suffers in BEOWULF with our inability to look into his eyes.

I suppose one advantage to performance capture lies in the ability of the filmmaker to completely remake the actors’ physical appearance to conform to the demands of the role. Such is the case with Beowulfe himself, Ray Winstone, a somewhat pudgy British character actor who appears here to have the body of a Greek god. Of the entire cast, Angelina Jolie, who appears as the demon Grendel’s mother, appears the most realistic. Perhaps this is because she looks like a goddess to begin with. Whatever damage to her appearance has been done by her recent apparent bout with anorexia, Jolie appears here, rising out of the water, with the most perfect body you have ever laid eyes upon.

Since Beowulf elects to even the odds in his battle with Grendel by battling the demon naked and unarmed, we are treated to a method we’ve seen before in such films as THE SIMPSONS MOVIE and AUSTIN POWERS where strategically placed props, actors and other objects tend to mask our view of a character’s naughty bits. Because the prior use of this technique was in comedies and for obvious comic effect, we can’t help but laugh when we see it here, something I’m not sure the filmmakers intended.

BEOWULF looked to me like a highly skillful rendering of a video game. On the upside, it allowed Zemeckis to present some mind-boggling camera work, resulting in shots and images that would have been impossible to present using live-action photography. If you approach this with the idea that you’re going to see a very handsome animated film and surrender yourself to the story-telling, you might just come away from BEOWULF satisfied.

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CHRIS SAYS:

The eyes! Why would something so simple be so hard to recreate? And it is not like it is impossible. In Peter Jackson's KING KONG you can literally see the life leave Kong’s eyes before he falls from the Empire State building. (Does that count as a spoiler?). But, that was hardly noticeable after you made yourself stop paying attention to it. Otherwise it was beautiful. The backdrops, the demons, the people, Angelina Jolie! They were all greatly rendered in a show of pixels and binary code. And I think I have figured out why they chose motion capture. It’s easier. It would take much longer to build each scene from the ground up. I mean sure, if they had gotten live actors that would fix that problem but who cares?

I think this film represents is a collision of past and present; a poem that is centuries old meeting modern CGI and special effects. That is probably why they chose to do the entire thing in CGI but I cannot speak on behalf of the director.

Although the film was well put together, there were some scenes that seemed to last longer than they should. A few lines seemed redundant, some were repeated too much and Beowulf seemed to have an identity crisis whenever he fought monsters, feeling the need to shout “I am Beowulf” at the top of his lungs. But otherwise the movie flowed and its storyline was easily followed.

I also think that the negative reviews are a bit harsh. I didn’t hate Beowulf. I had fun watching it. And I consider it a few hours of my life well spent. I mean where else do you see a naked man fight a monster? In what other movie can you see a kick from the point of view of the foot? Where else can you see Angelina Jolie wear nothing but melting gold and a smirk? It was a cool movie to watch. And forget about the video game thing, if there was a video game in production that looked like Beowulf I would be getting in line at my local Game Stop....right now. So, what did we learn today? The CGI is good, 3-D is better, covering up privates is funny in any context and most of all Angelina Jolie is hot.

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November 17, 2007