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| AMG Movie Review: Beowulf |
| by: Nicole Marie When I agreed to see Beowulf in 3-D, it wasn’t until the movie attendant handed me the Tom-Cruise-in-Risky-Business styled glasses that I realized what a mistake it was not wearing contact lenses that night. Trying to compensate for the fact that I was wearing two pairs of glasses, I spent the rest of the night acting as I thought a normal, polite human being should on a first date. Immediately after leaving the presence of my date, I found myself yelling uncontrollably in my deepest manly tone, “I am Beooowulf!” The cork on my crazy, bottled up emotions had finally popped and my sister, who was with me at the time, roared with laughter. The story of Beowulf is the oldest surviving piece of English literature known today, but writers Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary give it a modern twist for its silver screen debut. This epic tale begins as Beowulf (Ray Winstone), a strapping warrior hero, sails to a Dutch town to kill the monster Grendel. But the town’s real monster is Grendel’s demonic mother (Angelina Jolie), who seduces Beowulf with her beauty and undeniable promises of power and wealth. There’s a catch to this devilish deal, and it’s not until Beowulf is in his later years that it catches up with him. |
| Director Robert Zemeckis created Beowulf using motion- capture, a hybrid of computer animation and real screen acting. Actors wore special suits and sensors that digitally captured their movements and facial expressions in front of a green screen. Thinking back to just a few years ago when Zemeckis made The Polar Express, it’s amazing to see how far this technique has evolved. The characters no longer live in an imaginary land of lifeless eyes and simplified environments. Everything from the hair |
| on Beowulf’s nose, to stormy ocean water seem tangible. In 3-D, arrows fly through the theater, swords slash across seats and all but the heat from the fire-breathing dragon reaches the audience. Despite this technological triumph, motion-capture still has a long way to go in mimicking reality. Actors’ movements are still effortlessly fluid and their clothing sways in unnatural rhythms. Not surprisingly, Beowulf is only competing under the ‘Best Animated Feature Film’ category for the upcoming Academy Award Nominations. Much of the media frenzy about this movie revolved around the scene in which Angelina Jolie emerges from an eerie dark lake covered only by a thin layer of liquid gold. However, it seemed to me that while Angelina's curves were perfectly digitized, she was about as sexual as a child's plastic Barbie Doll. Her feminine parts were masked and the embedded spiked heels only added to the unbelievable nature of her character. The real sex appeal came when Beowulf stripped down for bed, proudly displaying his perfectly sculpted body of Adonis. Even my overtly masculine date voiced his speculation about what lie behind those strategically placed objects covering Beowulf’s groin during an Austin Powers inspired scene, which in 3-D drew both belly laughs and uncomfortable giggles. There are some complaints that motion-capture distances the audience from the story, but with so much gore and violence any more realistic, my tightly shut eyes would not have needed any glasses at all. Between the graphic spillage of blood and guts, the sadistic battles, and the almost-there-nudity, it’ s surprising that Beowulf managed a PG-13 rating. I can’t say that I was particularly impressed with the acting, but overall Zemeckis fashioned an impressive, suspense packed movie definitely worth the trip to the theaters. Movie rating: 3.5/5 |
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