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Sunday, November 8, 2009
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CGI right choice for 'Beowulf'
Movie Review: Beowulf
By Brett Troxler
btroxler@wbrz.com
Web Producer
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This incarnation of “Beowulf” is a story of temptation and hubris and of how the hero gained his immortality in song. The film opens with a scene of revelry at the Danish mead hall called Heorot. But the celebration, led by the drunken King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins), draws the attention of an unknown foe. Before the night is through the hall is terrorized by the demon Grendel (Crispin Glover), who arrives tormented by the sounds of merrymaking. Many are lost during his fit of rage.
Shortly thereafter Hrothgar sends word out that a hero is needed to defeat the monster. That’s when Beowulf (Ray Winstone), a hero of Geats, arrives by sea with a small contingent of men. The hero lives up to his name and vanquishes Grendel from the hall, but following his apparent victory over the beast, Beowulf soon finds a threat remains in the form of Grendel’s mother, for she seeks revenge for the harm done to her son. Angelina Jolie plays this water demon, a temptress capable of morphing out of her scaly, golden hide into a maiden of irresistible beauty.
This is the point where the film diverges a bit from the traditional text — the screenplay was penned by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avery — s Beowulf’s pride and thirst for worldly possessions threatens to curse him for all time. When he confronts Grendel’s mother in the dark of the mountain, he must decide whether to fight her to the death or succumb to his desire for her seductions and sexuality, and the ultimate allure of the power she promises.
Robert Zemeckis puts his all-CGI experience from “The Polar Express” to use in this adventure, and the results are visually brilliant, particularly in digital 3-D. An entirely computer-generated canvas allowed the director to do use camera angles and lighting effects that would have been impossible otherwise, and in three dimensions there is plenty to whoosh by you, fall on you, and stab at or drip in your eyes.
Actors and actresses—the cast also includes John Malkovich as Unferth and Robin Wright Penn as Wealthow—were filmed in empty rooms wearing only specially designed body suits. Their motions were mapped while delivering their lines so they could eventually be transformed into their digital counterparts. The amount of detail on Beowulf, particularly the hair and lines on his face, is astounding, and the presentation of the foes he battles range from the utterly graphic and disgusting (Grendel) to the delectable (his mother). Some characters didn’t get the same amount of attention as others, though, and it shows.
On the whole, “Beowulf” is a breathtaking visual achievement with intense action sequences, scenes of brutal violence and a surprising amount of gore. The story has been altered a bit from its counterpart in literature, but the choices made in that aspect might tie Beowulf’s tale together better than any we’ve read before. As such, the film version shows us the hero’s cost involved in earning eternal glory. Pride goeth before the fall, as they say
