Beowulf: A movie watched with daggy glasses
December 5th 2007 07:05
The individual hairs on skin; the tiny notches in weapons; the monstrous creatures - the animation was undisputedly impressive. This movie had ample violence, action and nudity, and an example of this couldn’t be better found in the scene where Beowulf took on the grotesque Grendel. The hero performed some rather improbable acrobatic moves while making the piteous monster bleed and neither of them had a stitch of clothing on.
The movie could be viewed as the tale on which the poem was based. This allowed for quite a few changes, most notably the inclusion of a curse, making Beowulf more “flawed man” than infallible mythical hero, and also at the same time increasing the part Grendel’s mother had to play – thus creating more screen time for yummy mummy, Angelina Jolie’s naked gold-dripping body.
Also unlike in the poem, Beowulf was portrayed as a plainly spoken man. Being able to kick arse was deemed enough talent for a hero, I suppose. But every time Beowulf announced his own name - especially when he shouted it at Grendel like it was a war cry - I had to suppress the urge to go “Matt Damon” in a dopey voice.
While I did appreciate the painstaking detail of the animation and the effort put into making the story more interesting with such things as vices and betrayals, I found the movie overall to have fallen a bit flat. I’ve seen this type of story too many times and perhaps it was also due to the fact that it was animated because I found myself unaffected by the 3D blood and gore, however life-like it was.
Don’t get me wrong - I still enjoyed the film. I just wanted more (and I definitely would’ve liked more comfortable glasses). Well, with the multitude of movies being churned out these days, I guess it won’t be too long before I come across something that will have a script to match the ever-improving quality of animation.
The movie could be viewed as the tale on which the poem was based. This allowed for quite a few changes, most notably the inclusion of a curse, making Beowulf more “flawed man” than infallible mythical hero, and also at the same time increasing the part Grendel’s mother had to play – thus creating more screen time for yummy mummy, Angelina Jolie’s naked gold-dripping body.
Also unlike in the poem, Beowulf was portrayed as a plainly spoken man. Being able to kick arse was deemed enough talent for a hero, I suppose. But every time Beowulf announced his own name - especially when he shouted it at Grendel like it was a war cry - I had to suppress the urge to go “Matt Damon” in a dopey voice.
While I did appreciate the painstaking detail of the animation and the effort put into making the story more interesting with such things as vices and betrayals, I found the movie overall to have fallen a bit flat. I’ve seen this type of story too many times and perhaps it was also due to the fact that it was animated because I found myself unaffected by the 3D blood and gore, however life-like it was.
Don’t get me wrong - I still enjoyed the film. I just wanted more (and I definitely would’ve liked more comfortable glasses). Well, with the multitude of movies being churned out these days, I guess it won’t be too long before I come across something that will have a script to match the ever-improving quality of animation.
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