Beowulf

There was no movie night this week for a number of reasons.
So instead I'll write about Beowulf, which I saw Friday night.

Beowulf is not the worst movie I've ever seen. However, I have enjoyed worse movies far more. The movie's major problem is Robert Zemeckis' insistence on forcing his motion-capture animation technique on the viewing audience. I haven't seen The Polar Express, but I've heard from more than one person that it was kind of creepy. After seeing Beowulf I know exactly what they mean. Imagine watching a story enacted by mechanical automatons with human skin stretched over their frameworks. That's pretty much what the characters in Beowulf look like. It's the stuff of nightmares.
Robert Zemeckis' belief that subtler performances can be gained from this style of animation just shows how little he knows about animation. All you have to do is watch a Pixar movie to know how subtle traditional animation can be. And if your goal is to perfectly capture an Anthony Hopkins performance, then make a movie with live actors and leave the animation to someone who knows what they're doing.

Ironically the movie's "terrifying" monster, Grendel, comes across as annoying at best. He's not scary, he's not even well-designed from an artistic standpoint. He looks like one of the animators let their kids design him. And his performance consists of a high-pitched scream that will make you want to jam your fists into your ears. In the few scenes that he isn't screaming you won't know what the hell he's saying anyway, since all of his lines are written in old English.
Actually, every scene with Grendel is either annoying or just silly. Beowulf strips down to nothing for his battle with Grendel. His excuse for doing this is so that he and Grendel are on equal terms. I'm not really sure how pants would give him a huge advantage, but whatever. This leads to the movie's first major action scene being more about the random objects that pop up to hide Beowulf's shame. These objects include, I swear to god, a large candle and the hilt of a sword. Zemeckis apparently took his action inspiration from a clever Austin Powers gag.
Also, when Beowulf punches Grendel in the ear it causes Grendel to shrink down to normal size. Taking the shrinkage even further, when Grendel's mom lays him to rest, his body has shrunk down to child size, yet his head hasn't shrunk at all. It looks really stupid.
Grendel is just handled very poorly in this movie.

John Malkovich's character is far scarier, though unintentionally so. Of all the characters in the movie that suffer from Zemeckis' zombie animator machine (or ZAM), he comes off the worst by far. Malkovich has an odd, stilted style of vocal performance anyway. Add this to the ZAM and you really get the feeling that something unholy is taking place before your eyes. In stunning 3D, no less!

I do want to mention the 3D, because it is the reason I payed full price to see this movie (actually 3D movies cost more). I love, love, love digital 3D and what it is capable of. Even in a movie like The Nightmare Before Christmas it looks fantastic, and that movie wasn't originally filmed for the format. To see a movie that was built from the ground up for 3D was spectacular in a lot of ways. There are shots in the movie where the camera is low to the ground, and the landscape appears to stretch off into the far distance. It looks amazing.

Unfortunately there are many points in the movie where something is popping out of the screen simply for the sake of doing it. It's neat, but in a movie that tries to take itself somewhat seriously it's also very distracting. There are moments of drama or danger that fall flat (pardon the pun), because your mind is simply marveling at the pointy thing that's coming right for you. Zemeckis is so in love with the technology that he re-uses several gags within the same movie. There are two dream sequences that end with something scary suddenly leaping toward the screen. Still, with this movie that was the most entertaining part, since the characters don't engage you on an emotional level.

No doubt there will be directors in the future that will use the 3D effects in subtle and engaging ways. Until then I'm sure there are going to be plenty of films that try to cram as much 3D spectacle into every frame possible (see: Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D, coming to theaters in 2008!). It's like the new CGI - really only effective when it serves the scene, rather than being the entire point of the scene.
Although it's likely 3D will always remain firmly in gimmick territory. It's hard to imagine a truly serious film ever using it. Imagine someone trying to make a holocaust movie in 3D. There's just no reason for it.

I should also mention the script, since it was co-written by Neil Gaiman. Gaiman is one of my favorite writers. I've read a couple of his novels, but mostly I'm familiar with his writing in comics. Considering he wrote Beowulf it makes it that much more disappointing. It's hard to say if the script would have come across better in a live action movie, or even an animated film that was well animated.
There were some things I liked about the story, such as the exploration of how legends are made. Beowulf is painted as a braggart, whose boasts evenly match his legitimate deeds.
But then there is the inclusion of Hrothgar's queen, who is almost more of a prop than a real character.
And none of the intentional humor really lands. Again, it's hard to tell if that's the fault of the script or the awkward execution.

I think I've sufficiently ranted about Beowulf. Hopefully next week our regular movie night will be back on schedule.