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Review: “Beowulf”
By Kyle | November 14, 2007
THE MEAD GENERATION
Kyle Smith review of “Beowulf”
115 minutes/PG-13 (nudity, violence, sexual talk)
Gather round the fire with your mutton and your mead, for I will sing you a tale of a film unlike any other–well, okay, it’s like “Lord of the Rings” retold with plastic dolls and a lot of wench jokes.
“Forrest Gump” director Robert Zemeckis takes us to the world of sixth-century Danish mead halls and iron-clad warriors via motion capture animation, the technique he used in “The Polar Express” that digitally paints over film. The effect is strange: the fantasy factor is less than it is in pure animation, while the human factor is less than it is in live action. Actors’ eyes turn into glassy beads and their skin becomes soft plastic; if the Pillsbury Dough Boy showed up on screen, he’d fit right in. Someone would give him a shield and a mace, tell him to lose a few pounds and send him into the action.
The aging king Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) leads a noisy life of wenching, quaffing and feasting, generally carrying on as if he’s The King of Queens. ”This should be a place of merriment, joy and fornication!” he commands, throwing gold coins everywhere. If you see the film in 3-D, as you should, you won’t be wondering why things (wenchly bosoms, pointy arrows, groin-threatening obstacles) are always lunging into the camera, but in 2-D much of this is wasted.
Life in the mead hall is disturbed by the invasion of a startlingly invincible 30-foot monster that had me thinking of Randy Moss. Grendel (Crispin Glover) is a slimy brute from the swamp eternal who rips Hrothgar’s warriors apart like mozzarella sticks. For some reason his destruction is glimpsed in flashes suggesting a strobe light. I know this is supposed to be ancient history and all, but do we really have to go all the way back to the disco era? Hrothgar’s advisers wonder if praying to the newest god on the block, Christ Jesus, will help, but Hrothgar says, “The gods will do nothing for us we can’t do for ourselves. What we need is a hero!” So why mention Jesus?
Up pops Beowulf (Ray Winstone? Really, Ray Winstone?) from across the sea primeval. With long, straight blond hair and a headband, he seems like Bjornborgowulf, but this is one Scandinavian who isn’t content to have a killer forehand. “I’m Beowulf,” he declares. “I’m here to kill your monster.” And quaff your drink and swive your wenches, please. The queen (Robin Wright Penn) frostily notifies Beowulf that “There have been many brave men who have come to taste my lord’s mead,” at which point the newcomer must be wondering if he has stumbled into Ye Olde Gay Scene.
Undeterred, Beowulf promptly strips naked in front of the queen, promising her that after he slays Grendel he’ll be happy to do some naked co-ed jousting with her, and then things get really strange. Grendel attacks again while Beowulf is nude, and while motion-capture Ray Winstone certainly has the carved physique nature denied the pillowy Ray Winstone we know from “The Departed” and “Sexy Beast,” you’d think he’d want to throw on some chain mail or at least pick up a codpiece before engaging in battle fierce with the slime-dripping beast. Instead, Beowulf, uh, rides the creature around the room. I mean, he mounts the monster bareback and bends it to his will. I mean, he squeezes the vicious demon between his rippling thighs and thrusts away with his fist.
Never mind. When it’s over, and everyone has earned a rest and a cigarette, it turns out there’s much more to get excited about: Angelina Jolie. She plays Grendel’s mother, a golden goddess who rises out of the water like Capt. Willard in “Apocalypse Now” insisting that Beowulf join forces with her. Meanwhile, back home, Hrothgar is in a state of agitation. He has been keeping some devastating secrets, but what are they? The man is as tough to pin down as Hroethlisberger.
Corny and crude the tale may be, with its jokes about Beowulf’s strong legs (all three of them), but with its lyres and pyres and archers and armor, it has plenty to keep you engaged until the smashing climactic scene, which involves a fire-breathing dragon, a clatter of arrows and lots of sighing maidens and crumbling castles and plunging swords. By this time, even I had accepted the oddity of Zemeckis’s animation technique and was content to revel in the clanking and burning and flying. Spectacle is the reason ”Beowulf” is much more than a token effort, though dialogue and character are why it is less than a Tolkien effort.
Topics: Movies |
November 14th, 2007 at 12:06 am
Hey - i was just googling Beowulf when I saw the link to your site. Fun review but that last line - ouch! We’re seeing this at the Lincoln Square IMAX Friday night and are practicing our bobbing and weaving in advance.
November 14th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
I agree, although I may not have been as thrilled as you were
I thought it was fun at some spots, but a bit longish in some of its sweeping camera movements through prickly forests, darkened halls, and dragon wings. I can’t get passed the weirdness of the physicality of the ‘actors’. I liked the message of pride, lust and consequences, and I even enjoyed the weightiness of certain plot elements for a PG-13 animation, but I’m not a huge fan.
November 14th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
Hey I enjoyed reading your review, but when I read it I was actually at work. My company is up-tight about websites you visit, and I just assumed this would be a safe page since it was only a movie review. I understand why you put this picture up, but next time you might want to keep it a little more office friendly for us people who are stuck in an “Office Space” environment
November 14th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
I was disappointed to say the least. You give a good account of it and not having seen it in 3D may make a difference. But it is a waste of characters, where even Anthony Hopkins has done a disservice to himself, not to say anthing about the character of Beowulf, whom you rightly said was really here for the bear… and whatever goes with it! The role of Angelina Jolie was so out of place… surely some more credible way of presenting the climax would have done justice to it in its epic format. What we have may an epic film in terms of techniques but of very unepic proportions in regards to story etc.
November 14th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Should read, “Here for the beer…”
November 16th, 2007 at 3:01 am
Hey, do u I see Angelina’s rug? This is a PG-13 movie?
November 24th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
I found Beowulf disappointing. If I wanted to -watch- a video game, I could do that at any any number of game stores for free.
November 24th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
Thanks for the great review! It gave a lot of great information about the movie. What’s interesting about your last sentence, however, is that Tolkien repeatedly told people that he based a lot of his writings on the poem Beowulf… which is one of the reasons why the poem became popular again…
November 25th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
Wow. I can’t tell if you hated or liked the movie. All I know is I was riveted throughout and though I was a bit peeved at first by the motion capture technique, which I wasn’t expecting, once I settled into this movie I actually enjoyed it a lot. Angelina was perfect as the seductive female dragon aka mother of the monster. Crispin Glover was superb as the pitiful Grendel, who managed to evoke my sympathy even while revolting me. The rest of the cast were also excellent, especially Robin Wright Penn as Hrothgar’s sad young wife. See this movie for what it is - pure fantasy entertainment - and not as a literal interpretation of the ancient epic poem.
November 27th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
A character assassination of the great character of Beowulf.
Beowulf never gave in to lust in the original story.
The director should hang his head in shame.You’re truly pathetic. Why should you do this to the original story ? The character of Beowulf is so inspiring.
He kills the female demon immediately after killing Grendel but here she is seen as invincible. What a load of crap!
I hope the movie is a disaster. The director deserves it for what he has done with the great original story.