Zachary FenellBeowulf
January 23rd 2009 17:55
Beowulf, 2007
If you read yesterday's post, you might've gotten the impression that I'm a Neil Gaiman fan, and you'd be right. I think there is only one book he's attached to that I haven't read. When I heard that Gaiman and Roger Avary had put together this little screenplay from some obscure and forgotten story, I was totally stoked. When I found out it was Beowulf... well, the Gaiman name encouraged me to watch it anyway.
In case you missed freshman English for some reason, Beowulf is the story of a Geat (that would be the modern day Swedes) hero who slays Grendel, the monster who is terrorizing Herot, the mead hall of the king Hrothgar. That's not enough, though, and Beowulf takes off to kill Grendel's mother as well, since she, too, has a penchant for causing problems for humans. This is where my explanation of the plot ends because the Gaiman-Avary interpretation of the "world's oldest written epic" is fresh, unique, and brilliant.
Computer generated animation has come a long way. That I'll grant. The problem for me comes in that this technique has been used almost exclusively for children-oriented shows such as Polar Express (I don't count Final Fantasy, which had a really different style). The animation overlay still comes out a bit wooden and... well, CGA, and maybe that's just a flaw of the technology, but in this particular case, it was really distracting. About half-way through the movie, I decided to use my imagination to pretend it was live action, and that helped a lot. I understand why they did it - there are some shots and some effects that you just can't really get without a lot of CGI, and perhaps they figured to just do the whole thing in the one style instead of mixing it up.
Even at that, the plot, the action and the ending are pure genius. The story is presented in such a way that you almost want to go back and read the original text, just to see where it dropped off there and picked up here. Yes, Angelina Jolie is all but naked (covered by strategic gold leafing), but Ray Winstone is naked even more. In an almost Austin-Powers-esque effort, we are spared from a full-on wang-shot, but there sure is a moon out tonight. I'm not sure what the rated version would entail, but I would say that this particular movie is probably not an appropriate high school classroom version.
As much as I adore the story, the acting, and the setting... I really wish I'd enjoyed this more. I'd love to see it done a different way, but that's like expecting MirrorMask to be redone as a wacky love story with Hugh Grant and Meryl Streep - yes, I know, it just wouldn't work now that we know what the story is supposed to look like.
4 stars. I can't knock it down further because it's a beautiful story, but it falls pretty short of being a perfect movie.
4 Stars
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