Beowulf

Okay, I promised a review of Beowulf earlier and haven't done it. So shoot me - I've been busy! Anyway, here it is.

Director Robert Zemeckis isn't quite up to his usual standard here. I've seen and liked quite a few of his movies, most recently The Polar Express, which although it was aimed at children and fell into the usually-terrible "Christmas silly season movie" category, was a really clever film with a tight storyline, clever acting (especially by Tom Hanks, who played about 6 characters), and a fabulous soundtrack (Josh Groban, what more can I say?!). But I'm meant to be reviewing Beowulf.

Again, Zemeckis has gone for CG-over-live-action. The cast list looked impressive: Ray Winstone in the title role, Anthony Hopkins, Robin Wright Penn (The Princess Bride), John Malkovich, Brendon Gleeson (Harry Potter - Mad-Eye Moody), Angelina Jolie (there for sex appeal, mostly), but somehow it failed to fire. Anthony Hopkins was unusually wooden as Hrothgar, the old king who was beng haunted by the demon Grendel - maybe it was the digital capture, but his line delivery wasn't awfully convincing either which is very unusual for Tony. The scenes with Grendel destroying the Viking village were good. The twisted relationship betwene Hrothgar and his queen Wealthow (Robin Wright Penn) was really well done, and the gradual revelation about why the village was haunted by Grendel was clever.

Jolie (Grendel's witch mother) had a great scene with Winstone when Beowulf went to try to destroy Grendel - the only drawback was that it felt like watching some 17-year-old computer geek's wet dream.... They had turned the water that was the witch's natural element into something resembling molten gold and had it flowing all over Jolie in a very lascivious manner. However, as the scene was meant to reveal Beowulf's weakness (lust and power - he got tempted to be king) it worked in context.

The story had an uber-narrative feel, and I could definitely see how the story had informed other major legends (eg King Arthur and Macbeth) - I'm guessing that they stuck fairly closely to the Old English poem, with all the gratuitous violence that works so well in Viking settings. I did feel my blood rising in the first feast scene: all that mead and good ol' Viking drinking and wenching stirred some kind of racial memory, which was a bit disturbing! The dragon at the end was superbly done, and I liked the fact that we were left wondering whether the new king would resist the blandishments of the witch.

All in all, I'd say it was 3.5 stars out of five; good, glad I saw it, but wouldn't see it again. I think it would make a great computer game though - and most of the work is already done! The animation did suffer in comparison with Weta Digital, as I said earlier, but it was generally good.