I saw Beowulf last week


Epic loses in the translation

It's a film I've looked forward to seeing. I've been a fan of Robert Zemeckis since Romancing the Stone. The Back to the Future films are one of the very few times I think that the film sequel pays off more than the original. Who Framed Roger Rabbit? was brilliant. Used Cars is an overlooked Kurt Russell film that makes a pretty good date flick.

So when the news hit that Zemeckis was taking on the epic Beowulf, I was happy. Especially when I found out that Neil Gaiman cowrote the screenplay.

Overall, the CGI animation is amazing. There are shots that would be impossible to pull off otherwise, like the beautiful sequence where the viewer's perspective winds through the rafters of the mead hall. With a few jerky starts, the principal characters look fantastic, and eventually more real than real. The landscape is everything you could want from an epic tale.

But that opening sequence in the mead hall reminded me of Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean ride, and not in a good way. Amazingly detailed, but very mechanical and jerky in movement.

Somebody should please tell the animators that horses don't move that way. A horse is more than a piece of furniture to be sat on, he's a living breathing creature with his own desires and fears. These reminded me of the mechanical horse race in Popeye.

All that is acceptable and we can live with it if the story is strong enough. And that is where the film falls down.

In every translation of Beowulf I have ever read, Grendal's mother is protrayed one of two ways. She's either a monster herself or a mighty warrior woman only a half step removed from the Valkyries. The demon-seductress thing used in this film feels like it's been lifted from medieval Hebrew stories of Lilith where the demon seduces men and leads them astray. There's also more than a little of Morgan le Fay in this version of Grendal's mother, which I suppose justifies lifting a huge hunk of the Grail romances and plopping it down in the film's story. I can't think of another reason for the Arthurian elements.

It just doesn't fit.

The change in emphasis shifts the story from an epic to a Christianized morality tale. Hrothgar and Beowulf are brought low by their secret lusts, each lies to hide what he has done.

Women don't fare well in this film, except for Grendal's mother. There are only three speaking female parts, and one of those is the teenage bedmate to an elder Beowulf. Wealthow is in a loveless marriage with Hrothgar, and by the end of the film she has long since kicked Beowulf out of her marriage bed as well. The only other female character I remember is a serving woman who spends more time almost popping out of her gown than anything else.

I think I could have bought into the shapeshifting demon seductress if it weren't for the high heels. Or maybe Angelina Jolie's voice. She was miscast here. The character looked good on film, but the voice was exactly wrong.

My only other real problem was with the nudity taboos. Strategically placed swords and shadows get old real fast, not to mention the molecule thick gold coating that still manages to utterly smooth out nipples and genitalia.

Beowulf could have worked. It was close but still a missed opportunity. It could have been about a joining a kingship to magic, and the kings choosing to betray that magic. All the pieces were there. Instead it comes off as a morality play about men's unbridled lust, even to the ending.

Put this one in the almost pile.

Posted: Tue - December 25, 2007 at 12:46 PM
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