Movie Review: Beowulf (IMAC 3-D)
Nov. 21st, 2007 08:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrjIf you go into the theater to watch Beowulf without the understanding that it is, thoroughly and unashamedly, a big-screen adaptation of a graphic ... well, not "novel", but "literary work", and not a direct adaptation of the classic Old English heroic poem, it would be easy to misinterpret the movie's intent, and therefore to misjudge how well it succeeds at its purpose. What has struck more than one reviewer that I've read as "CGI badly imitating real-life acting" looks entirely different when viewed as "CGI bringing comic-book art to life." At the latter, it succeeds very well. The comic-art sensibility overwhelmingly informs everything from the cartoonish presentation of the human characters (including the tendency to lavish the greatest artistic detail on the focal characters), to the over-the-top exaggerated physical characteristics (in all directions) of the main characters ... well, except for the Angelina Jolie character who really does look that over-the-top in real life, to the gravity-defying trajectories of the fight scenes, even down to the use of light and shadow and the treatment of texture and color. The dripping-gold skin effect of the various monsters is pure comic-book art, lovingly realized.
When viewed through this lens, Beowulf is a fairly stunning triumph at translating one visual language to another. (A far greater success than most current live-action comic-book movies, which tend to retain the plot arcs, cheesy dialogue, and cardboard characterization, but not the visual aesthetic.)
And speaking of lenses, having seen the 3-D version of the movie, I'm willing to venture that it's the only way to see this work. (The IMAX setting may not be necessary, but don't skip the 3-D.) To do otherwise would be like watching The Wizard of Oz on a black and white TV. 3-D movie technology has come a long way. And even though wearing the polarizerd goggles (I assume they're polarized, I didn't check by doing the phase-one-against-another trick) over regular glasses is still annoying, I didn't lose any of the view-field. There was a little bit of eyestrain during some of the "coming right at you" effects, but that may not be just me. Especially delightful were the swooping birds-eye (dragon's-eye?) pans across the countryside.
Now ... about the story. Just as every dog has to pee on the hydrant, every director has to put his own spin on classic literature, no matter how good the original story is. I accept this. Briefly, for those who haven't seen the movie and don't mind getting the plot laid out. Danish king and his retinue are partying hearty in his new hall. The noise wakes up the monster Grendel in his cave nearby and he drops in to join the party in his own way. Carnage ensues. His own men having been decimated, the king puts out a call for a hero and Beowulf shows up with his own bully boys. They lure the monster with a little partying of their own and Beowulf rips off Grendel's arm leaving the monster to run home to Mommy and die. Mommy shows up and massacres all of Beowulf's guys except him and his best bud Wiglaf. Beowulf goes to tackle Mommy in her lair. Turns out Mommy has (or at least, can have) a bod like Angelina Jolie and bargains it to Beowulf: he gives her a son to replace her dead one (along with a golden bribe) and in return she grants him undying fame. Oh, and it turns out the Danish king had encountered Mommy some years before and begot Grendel, which is why Grendel was harrassing him in particular. Beowulf returns to the king's hall with a slippery story about slaying the murderous hag and is rewarded with inheriting the kingdom (and the king's wife, as the cherry on top) -- an inheritance he instantly picks up when the king walks off a cliff. Many years pass; Beowulf garners undying fame. The bargain with Mommy goes sour and a dragon (i.e., Beowulf & Mommy's son) shows up to ravage the land. Beowulf slays the dragon and dies. There are lots of other details.
Taken as an abstract story-line, the motif of the monsters being generated by the heroes' own sins works (as long as you don't get too bent out of shape by the mere fact that That's Not How It Happened which is a bit of a slippery concept anyway, given that this is myth, not history). Similarly, the casting of Beowulf as a venal, deceitful, boastful publicity hound is a relatively clever re-framing of the character type and didn't bother me.
I rather liked that Grendel was set up to be a sympathetic character. (Perhaps the most sympathetic in the whole movie.) His motivation for attacking the feasters in Heorot? Because just when he was trying to relax in his cave, every Geat down in Geatville would sing sing sing SING. (Yes, I really did flash on a Grendel-Grinch cross-over there in the theater. I hereby freely release the concept to anyone who wants to run with it.) And though, as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
scotica noted at the time, if you have monstrously sensitive hearing like Grendel, maybe you shouldn't choose to live in an echo chamber of a cave that seems specially tuned to pick up the sound of carousing from a fortress miles away. But you know? When the warriors started their rhythmic banging of tables and chanting of names and (shudder) singing ... well, let's just say that I've been to that SCA event and I was tempted to do some limb-from-limb ripping myself.
I did have one major disappointment from the character changes. In the original poem, Grendel's mother is -- asklwilliams put it -- a serious bad-ass. She kicks Beowulf's butt and it takes everything he's got to overcome her. In this movie version we get the essentially off-screen slaughter of Beowulf's men, but when she confronts the hero himself we get seduction as her offensive weapon. With this bait-and-switch, for me, the characer has been completely ... what we need here is a word that is a precise feminine synonym for "emasculated'. ("Efeminated" just doesn't cut it.) This erasing of female physical success is echoed -- perhaps inadvertently -- by a scene at the end of the dragon battle. During the battle, Beowulf's queen and his hot young popsie have made common cause to survive the dragon's attack on the parapet where they're both trapped. At the battle's end, part of the stonework gives way, leaving the queen dangling in mid-air held by the wrists by the popsie. No one else is around. By all that is right and just, this scene deserves a triumphant Frodo-in-Mt.-Doom hauling to safety that cements the relationship between the two women. But no. The rescuer's grip weakens, the queen falls ... and is plucked out of mid-air at the last moment by heroic sidekick Wiglaf, arriving in the nick of time. Women have no true power. They can neither defeat men by their own strength (the men must defeat themselves by surrendering to the seducer) nor can they save themselves by their own strength (rescue comes only from men). Ah well, it was too much to hope for. This is why I write my own stories.
Some random plusses and minuses
One subtle but deft touch was the use of language. When Grendel and his mother speak to each other, they appeared to be using Old English -- carefully designed to balance just on the edge of intelligibility (although you might want to get more opinions on that than a bunch of history and ancient language geeks). And when the story of Beowulf's defeat of Grendel is being recited and re-enacted in his hall late in the movie, they use the poem in its original language. (And why not, after all?)
On a geographic note, you could have set Beowulf in a generic "mythic heroic North". But if you're going to explicitly label the setting as "Denmark" in the opening credits, you might want to take note of the complete absence in Denmark of anything resembling high forbidding sea-cliffs or craggy mountains.
scotica and I have an evolving checklist of standard Hollywood-medieval movie cliches. Here's how Beowulf scored it on some of the most applicable ones.
Present:
* tattooed bald guy
* barbarian heroes with braids (but not, in this case, the skinny "warrior braid" look with the remainder of the hair flowing loose -- the do that I've started thinking of as the barbarian equivalent of a mullet)
* gratuitous use of siege engines
* gratuitous heroic battle-gymnastics
* extremely gratuitous sword-as-penis motif
* significant temporal displacement of castle architechture
Absent:
* blue-painted savages, Celtic or otherwise
* gratuitous use of explosions
* hero motivated by rape and/or murder of girlfriend/wife
Final analysis: definitely worth seeing, especially for the overall visual aesthetic (including the 3-D work). But take it for what it is -- which is neither great art nor a faithful rendering of the Old English poem.
When viewed through this lens, Beowulf is a fairly stunning triumph at translating one visual language to another. (A far greater success than most current live-action comic-book movies, which tend to retain the plot arcs, cheesy dialogue, and cardboard characterization, but not the visual aesthetic.)
And speaking of lenses, having seen the 3-D version of the movie, I'm willing to venture that it's the only way to see this work. (The IMAX setting may not be necessary, but don't skip the 3-D.) To do otherwise would be like watching The Wizard of Oz on a black and white TV. 3-D movie technology has come a long way. And even though wearing the polarizerd goggles (I assume they're polarized, I didn't check by doing the phase-one-against-another trick) over regular glasses is still annoying, I didn't lose any of the view-field. There was a little bit of eyestrain during some of the "coming right at you" effects, but that may not be just me. Especially delightful were the swooping birds-eye (dragon's-eye?) pans across the countryside.
Now ... about the story. Just as every dog has to pee on the hydrant, every director has to put his own spin on classic literature, no matter how good the original story is. I accept this. Briefly, for those who haven't seen the movie and don't mind getting the plot laid out. Danish king and his retinue are partying hearty in his new hall. The noise wakes up the monster Grendel in his cave nearby and he drops in to join the party in his own way. Carnage ensues. His own men having been decimated, the king puts out a call for a hero and Beowulf shows up with his own bully boys. They lure the monster with a little partying of their own and Beowulf rips off Grendel's arm leaving the monster to run home to Mommy and die. Mommy shows up and massacres all of Beowulf's guys except him and his best bud Wiglaf. Beowulf goes to tackle Mommy in her lair. Turns out Mommy has (or at least, can have) a bod like Angelina Jolie and bargains it to Beowulf: he gives her a son to replace her dead one (along with a golden bribe) and in return she grants him undying fame. Oh, and it turns out the Danish king had encountered Mommy some years before and begot Grendel, which is why Grendel was harrassing him in particular. Beowulf returns to the king's hall with a slippery story about slaying the murderous hag and is rewarded with inheriting the kingdom (and the king's wife, as the cherry on top) -- an inheritance he instantly picks up when the king walks off a cliff. Many years pass; Beowulf garners undying fame. The bargain with Mommy goes sour and a dragon (i.e., Beowulf & Mommy's son) shows up to ravage the land. Beowulf slays the dragon and dies. There are lots of other details.
Taken as an abstract story-line, the motif of the monsters being generated by the heroes' own sins works (as long as you don't get too bent out of shape by the mere fact that That's Not How It Happened which is a bit of a slippery concept anyway, given that this is myth, not history). Similarly, the casting of Beowulf as a venal, deceitful, boastful publicity hound is a relatively clever re-framing of the character type and didn't bother me.
I rather liked that Grendel was set up to be a sympathetic character. (Perhaps the most sympathetic in the whole movie.) His motivation for attacking the feasters in Heorot? Because just when he was trying to relax in his cave, every Geat down in Geatville would sing sing sing SING. (Yes, I really did flash on a Grendel-Grinch cross-over there in the theater. I hereby freely release the concept to anyone who wants to run with it.) And though, as
scotica noted at the time, if you have monstrously sensitive hearing like Grendel, maybe you shouldn't choose to live in an echo chamber of a cave that seems specially tuned to pick up the sound of carousing from a fortress miles away. But you know? When the warriors started their rhythmic banging of tables and chanting of names and (shudder) singing ... well, let's just say that I've been to that SCA event and I was tempted to do some limb-from-limb ripping myself.I did have one major disappointment from the character changes. In the original poem, Grendel's mother is -- as
klwilliams put it -- a serious bad-ass. She kicks Beowulf's butt and it takes everything he's got to overcome her. In this movie version we get the essentially off-screen slaughter of Beowulf's men, but when she confronts the hero himself we get seduction as her offensive weapon. With this bait-and-switch, for me, the characer has been completely ... what we need here is a word that is a precise feminine synonym for "emasculated'. ("Efeminated" just doesn't cut it.) This erasing of female physical success is echoed -- perhaps inadvertently -- by a scene at the end of the dragon battle. During the battle, Beowulf's queen and his hot young popsie have made common cause to survive the dragon's attack on the parapet where they're both trapped. At the battle's end, part of the stonework gives way, leaving the queen dangling in mid-air held by the wrists by the popsie. No one else is around. By all that is right and just, this scene deserves a triumphant Frodo-in-Mt.-Doom hauling to safety that cements the relationship between the two women. But no. The rescuer's grip weakens, the queen falls ... and is plucked out of mid-air at the last moment by heroic sidekick Wiglaf, arriving in the nick of time. Women have no true power. They can neither defeat men by their own strength (the men must defeat themselves by surrendering to the seducer) nor can they save themselves by their own strength (rescue comes only from men). Ah well, it was too much to hope for. This is why I write my own stories.Some random plusses and minuses
One subtle but deft touch was the use of language. When Grendel and his mother speak to each other, they appeared to be using Old English -- carefully designed to balance just on the edge of intelligibility (although you might want to get more opinions on that than a bunch of history and ancient language geeks). And when the story of Beowulf's defeat of Grendel is being recited and re-enacted in his hall late in the movie, they use the poem in its original language. (And why not, after all?)
On a geographic note, you could have set Beowulf in a generic "mythic heroic North". But if you're going to explicitly label the setting as "Denmark" in the opening credits, you might want to take note of the complete absence in Denmark of anything resembling high forbidding sea-cliffs or craggy mountains.
scotica and I have an evolving checklist of standard Hollywood-medieval movie cliches. Here's how Beowulf scored it on some of the most applicable ones. Present:
* tattooed bald guy
* barbarian heroes with braids (but not, in this case, the skinny "warrior braid" look with the remainder of the hair flowing loose -- the do that I've started thinking of as the barbarian equivalent of a mullet)
* gratuitous use of siege engines
* gratuitous heroic battle-gymnastics
* extremely gratuitous sword-as-penis motif
* significant temporal displacement of castle architechture
Absent:
* blue-painted savages, Celtic or otherwise
* gratuitous use of explosions
* hero motivated by rape and/or murder of girlfriend/wife
Final analysis: definitely worth seeing, especially for the overall visual aesthetic (including the 3-D work). But take it for what it is -- which is neither great art nor a faithful rendering of the Old English poem.
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no subject
Date: 2007-11-22 05:32 am (UTC)I haven't seen the movie, so I don't know how accurate that is, but it seems like a quite nifty idea nonetheless. Especially if they're portraying him as a "deceitful, boastful publicity hound".
no subject
Date: 2007-11-22 05:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-22 05:47 am (UTC)Since I'm bracing for the day-after-Thanksgiving-weekend start of Christmas Carol Hell at work (All Christmas Radio All The Time, with a total playlist of around 50 including The Chipmunks), this made me laugh and laugh and laugh. Out loud. Amen, sister!
no subject
Date: 2007-11-22 05:49 am (UTC)At least it warms my heart to hear the gratuitous use of the name Wiglaf.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-22 06:03 am (UTC)You've created a whole new way of looking at it for me, and now I'll just have to go see it. 8^D
no subject
Date: 2007-11-22 06:54 am (UTC)I love this sentence.
I also quite liked the Wealthow/Ursula relationship, and was annoyed at the not-pulling-up. Now, she might not have been strong enough to lift a person larger than herself, but if that's the case then the dangling is just gratuitous peril and has no story-telling point at all. Had the queen fallen and died there could have been a statement about realism (er, after the dragon attack...), and if Ursula had pulled her up or she'd managed to catch hold of the edge and pull herself up there could have been a different sort of narrative purpose, but Wiglaf swooping in at the last minute just didn't fit with any of the rest of the story.
I was intrigued by Wealthow's perspective on events in general -- there wasn't enough of her shown to make her an interesting character, but there was just enough to make her a character I'm interested in, if that makes sense. I don't know what her story is, but I'd like to.
(Uh, hi!
no subject
Date: 2007-11-22 12:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-22 04:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-22 06:41 pm (UTC)Thanks for letting me know that the movie was adapted from something besides a scriptwriter's desire to hang on to a famous title. I don't plan on seeing it, especially in 3-D; gruesomely violent movies aren't my cup of blood. But it's interesting to hear about.
Wasn't there a Bugs Bunny cartoon (or several) based on that premise?
no subject
Date: 2007-11-23 02:35 am (UTC)I don't recall that, but John Gardner's Grendel has a certain amount of that motivation.