BEOWULF

MOVIE REVIEW...

The filmmakers of ‘Beowulf’ sure have paid a lot of attention to the CGI detailing of the fur coats that some of the characters wear in this animated film. If such attention to detail had been paid to the story line, this film would have been a far better watch than the weakly written, badly scripted and unimpressive film that we have here.
The story is adapted from an ancient English epic poem that tells a European (read Nordic/Scandavian) tale of Beowulf, a seafaring viking warrior, who battles demons and monsters on the continent.
The story is centred on a monster called Grendel who terrorises a small kingdom. To cut a long story short (but not as short as the dismemberment that the monster inflicts on his victims) Grendel is swiftly dispatched to the netherworld by Beowulf. Then, in steps Grendel’s mama who has a big bone to pick with the hero and devices a long term revenge that, if you really think about it, is so sublime that it would make you nod in agreement at the deviousness of it.
Unfortunately, think of it for too long you won’t, because your mind will be too busy thinking of other things. Like the poor choice of voice casting.
Beowulf is voiced by Ray Winstone (yes, I too said, ‘Who???’). Alongside him is John Malkovich who, true to Malkovich’s real life persona, even when he emerges in CGI form, somehow manages to bring really clammy and hammy bad acting to (re?) animated life much to everyone’s horror. Adding to the audience’s pain and misery in having to sit through this film is Robin Wright Penn.
If you must know, Malkovich plays Unferth; Wright Penn is Wealthow; and a portly Anthony Hopkins voices Hrothgar -- all lame and forgettable characters.
Unsurprisingly, Angelina Jolie is finely cast as Grendel’s old lady and she is the only good thing about this movie, although I am sure that she is going to get plenty of brickbats (ala her 2004 performance in Oliver Stone’s ‘Alexander’) for her strange accent.
(Oh crikey, come to think of it, Hopkins was in ‘Alexander’ as well, playing Ptolemy, gloriously badly too, I might add!)
The always reliably off-center Crispin Glover voices Grendel and rest assured that you won’t understand a thing he says. Although Glover gets an ‘A’ for dramatising Grendel, he will fail to impress many. You could say that Jolie and Glover suffer from a birds-of-a-feather syndrome when it comes to strange accents.
As for the quality of the animation, it is best described as cartoon-realism. It all looks passe, like those cheesy animation found in computer games of a few years ago (Hexen comes to my mind). Although there are moments when the animation does look photo-realistic (OK, photo realistic AFTER much tweaking on photographic software like Adobe Photoshop), these are quickly forgotten by really fake looking environments or objects or people -- just take your pick.
And if you really want to have fun as a viewer, look at Unferth’s eyes as he talks to Beowulf: Unferth comes across as if a he is visually handicapped at some points, seemingly looking into a void (in scenes when these two first meet).
The only good thing about a computer animated film is, of course, the possibilities of adventurous camera work. Since ‘Beowulf’ is directed by the amazing Robert Zemeckis who brought us delightful and fantastic films like the ‘Back to the Future’ trilogy (starring Matthew Fox, 1985-1990); ‘Death Becomes Her’ (1992); ‘Forrest Gump’ (1994); ‘What Lies Beneath’
(2000); and ‘Cast Away’ (2000) - the camera work can be exhilarating at times. Zemeckis seems strangely uninspired in helming this film.
However, the real surprise for me is the fact that the special effects, which should be stupendous considering that this is a computer-generated animated film, don’t look too great.
It is more a conceptual problem, I suppose than one that has to do with digital rendering. For example, Grendel looks lame compared to CGI characters like Gollum in Peter Jackson’s ‘Lord of The Rings’ (2001-2003) trilogy.
The biggest flaw of the film is the script. Mixing too much drama and the baser instincts of man into an animated fantasy film is never a good idea and all the sexual shenanigans and puns are actually a bit revolting to watch. I suppose audiences will always want to bite into a real piece of meat if they want to watch onscreen passion! That’s why, although technically getting animated characters to be horny and amorous might be a sweet challenge for computer programmers, IF you look at things from the other end of the screen in the cinema, it all seems like voyeuristic fodder for desperate, dysfunctional people who can’t get a date in real life.
Ultra liberal as I am, I also don't get why the director has Beowulf prancing around naked with furniture and his men standing around like so many props to hide Beowulf's manhood from the audience. Having him strip is a silly move - in an animated film?! The filmmakers should have left the man with his loin cloth on, at the very least, and get on with the action proper when he fights Grendel.
(Anyway, Austin Powers did it best when he stripped down in the gloriously choreographed sequence where Austin Powers' lady love cleverly hid his family jewels from public view with a tea cup here and the tea pot there!)
Add to this the high level of screen violence and you have a film that is quite unsuitable for young kids and really not up to the mark of adult cinemagoers.

BEOWULF
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Starring the voice talents of Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, John Malkovich, Robin Wright Penn, Brendan Gleeson, Crispin Glover, Alison Lohman, Angelina Jolie