Movie Review - 'Beowulf'

Beowulf

Starring Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Robin Wright Penn and Angelina Jolie
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Rated PG-13

Beowulf is one of the most important pieces of literature in the Western world. Dating back nearly 1500 years, the epic poem has themes and compromised heroes the likes of which storytellers are still trying to improve upon.

The movie version of Beowulf, despite all the trimmings, is not one of most important pieces of literature in the Western world. It's good, a byproduct of having that great source material and scads of money to throw at it, but it's not very entertaining, and the incredibly detailed 3-D animation is all science and no heart.

Director Robert Zemeckis employed the same kind of animation technique for Polar Express - a much better film in the same 3-D projection - and there have been noticeable improvements. But the use of motion capture, through which live actors are essentially animated over by a computer, still isn't practical or entirely necessary.

Does it give Beowulf a unique look? Sure. But for everything it allows filmmakers to do, it allows just as many opportunities for filmgoers to nitpick. Many people found the approach unsettling to watch in Polar Express; that hasn't changed.

If there's a real eye-opener here, it's not the performances, all rather measured, even for boiling kettles of emotion like Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins and Brendan Gleeson. Rather, the most dominant impression being made is by the lustful, violent screenplay by Roger Avary and Neil Gaiman, which somehow only warranted a PG-13 rating. It seems curious given the amount of nudity and number of dismemberments. Somehow, animating those things makes it more appropriate? I'm just trying to figure out the illogical, inconsistent MPAA for a minute.

Redeemed by its action scenes but also downgraded because it doesn't have enough of them, Beowulf feels less like the epic poem it was originally intended to be and more like the precursor to the real thing.