Beowulf

You’ve got to give director, Robert Zemeckis, credit for trying to revolutionize the way in which he made movies through his usage of his own motion-capture animation, but it very rarely resulted in quality material. While some movies with this style of animation have done well like The Polar Express and Monster House, more often than not, they are looked back on more negatively and even laughed at for their awkward un-rendered visuals effects that made things look photo-realistic in a way that was more uncanny than natural. In spite of this, most of these films, whether good or bad, are remembered and talked about for what they tried to do and how (or if) they failed in the process. The 2007 film, Beowulf, based on the old English poem of Germanic legend, is one that barely anyone ever talks about or even recognizes, showing how even within the small group of films made with this style, it still wasn’t able to stand out. In 507 Denmark, the legendary Gaelic warrior, Beowulf (played by Ray Winstone) has sailed from across the world in a response to King Hrothgar (played by Anthony Hopkins) looking for a hero to slay Grendel (played by Crispin Glover), a horrific troll-like monster who has attacked his kingdom for several nights now. With enough boastful nature and combat skills to carry his entire fleet, Beowulf agrees to the task and manages to slay the creature, which causes fury within the mother of Grendel (played by Angelina Jolie) who manages to seduce Beowulf and tempt him with a promise of power and status, which appears to come true after Hrothgar commits suicide, leaving him the throne. With years passing and Beowulf now king alongside Queen Wealtheow (played by Robin Wright), vengeance finally comes in the form of a gigantic golden dragon which attacks the kingdom. Wanting to undo what he’s done (especially with the knowledge that this dragon may actually be his spawn from his sexual endeavour with Grendel’s mother), Beowulf will need to carry the blade once more and slay this monster truthfully this time. After under-performing at the box office and with critical reception being generally pretty split, Beowulf may not be the worst film to come out of these motion-capture films, but it is easily one of the blandest.

With the idea of a Beowulf film being commissioned as early back as 1997, the movie was originally going to be a small-scale gritty live-action picture with a relatively small budget directed by Robert Avary that called back to other similarly made historical-fiction action films like Jabberwocky and Excalibur. However, the project was put on turnaround and wasn’t followed up on until 2005, where Robert Zemeckis (who was set to produce the original film) had the idea of presenting this legendary poem in a digitally enhanced fashion, and convinced Avary to give up the directorial reigns and pass them to him (Avary would become a screenwriter for the film alongside English author, Neil Gaiman). While the text of Beowulf is often held in high regard, it doesn’t feel like it would make for a very compelling movie as by today’s standards, it’s a very by-the-numbers heroic tale and comes across as pretty shallow in its emotional grab, overly vague in its details and bare-bones in its ideas. Ironically, the most interesting element of the story is the vagueness of who wrote it (the author was never truly discovered) and how the text was constantly rewritten to better fit whatever religion was popular throughout the ages (switching between Pagan and Christian ideals with each passing iteration), so the film made the smart call to totally rewrite the story and instead present this squeaky-clean heroic victory as one that was fabricated to cover up the truly grey aspects of these fabled characters. While that is a good idea and it certainly comes out more interesting than what could’ve been, the film doesn’t really have the most gripping content even with said tweaks. For a story that is supposed to be dark, gritty, aggressive and contain mature themes and even suggestions (this is an oddly horny movies in many parts), it feels a little too polished and showy to really emulate that atmosphere. This doesn’t just show through the visuals which can be distracting through the unnatural character models and the overly cinematic and needlessly fancy camerawork, but also from the direction by Zemeckis who, despite disowning the original story for being too outdated and safe, is known to be a relatively safe director who doesn’t know how to evolve with the times. There is a hoaky, childish quality to this story that might’ve worked if the intent was for this film to almost act as a child-friendly introduction into these kind of historical epics (it had all the right pieces and this animation style might’ve even been a great fit with that idea), but it feels like it would be kind of boring for younger audiences due to featuring very little action and a lot of slow-moving dialogue scenes. While the script by both Avary and Gaiman isn’t really bad and some of the changes raise a few nice new ideas like the connection Grendel’s mother has with all the rulers of this kingdom, adding in this theme of sexual desires corrupting those in power and how these men would be willing to endure long-term effects and consequences for a short-term feeling of passion, but it’s not enough to make it feel complex or that engaging from an emotional standpoint, as most of the conflicts in the film are either poorly explained, rarely touched upon, or resolved off-screen without much of a resolution. The second act is a better experience overall as it features better action, more complete versions of characters and at least a sense of stakes, next to the first act which is much slower and more predictable, but even an improvement still isn’t enough to make it really work.

It feels like Zemeckis wanted to allow people who normally wouldn’t do these kind of fantasy epics a chance to be in one, because he knew that their voices would be perfect fits, but maybe not their image. This can be felt the most with Ray Winstone as the role of Beowulf, which honestly seems like a smart choice in some areas, but a very strange decision in many others. Winstone is a great actor who has a fantastic sounding voice, and when the character is aged and weary from the constant battles and struggles life has thrown at him, he does a pretty good job as his booming raging tone of voice equivalent to that of a Viking leader is pretty grabbing, but when he’s young and supposed to sound youthful and arrogant, it doesn’t feel authentic in the least. The design doesn’t match the sound of the voice, the character is already written pretty flat so there isn’t much Winstone can do to improve things, and arguably the most engaging portion of Beowulf’s story happens during the final act or off-screen, so there is very little time for the audience to truly get to know him, or even see him as a safe one-note figure who is only engaging for his heroic epic feats and qualities. He’s not simple enough to be a fabled legendary hero, but he isn’t complex enough to be a deep and flawed hero, he’s just kind of a stale generic lead. The rest of the cast are a little split in terms of quality, but no one is truly awful either. John Malkovich at first as this slimy, bratty royal figure comes with his usual acting staples like a condescending demeanor and often flat performance, but his role is lessened as the film continues, so he doesn’t stick around long enough to be truly annoying, Anthony Hopkins is a little generic as the king, but he could play a role like this in his sleep so he still does it fine, Robin Wright starts off as annoyingly bland and lacking a purpose outside of being a love interest, but the second act lets her do a bit more so that is nice, and while Brendan Gleeson is criminally underused in this film despite looking and sounding pretty cool, the amount of effort he puts into almost every role always makes him a scene-stealer. The villains are also decently memorable, with grotesque distorted designs that feel like something ripped right out of an ancient medieval tale. Glover really only screeches and speaks in broken Danish for most of his part, but he does that well enough and can be a little intimidating when he’s featured on screen, and Jolie is able to capture the sinister allure that a character like this requires pretty nicely, to the point that it’s a shame she’s barely in the film.

Zemeckis clearly has a love for this animation style, so it arguably gets more attention than the scripting and direction in all the movies that use it. There’s an effort to make them a unique viewing experience especially in the cinemas, but it just feels like showy tricks trying to hype up a unique animation format outside of the theatrical space as there’s a lot of shots that clearly look like they were shot intentionally for 3D. Thankfully, like most of the 3D tricks used in these movies, they do feel like they would look cool in the theatre and the way the camera moves during some of the action sequences does result in a fun experience whether on the big screen or not. With that said, there are several shots handled by Robert Presley that do feel needlessly elaborate, and more like it serves the visual style rather than the story itself. It’ll have a lot of camera motion whether the scene requires it or not, and while a lot of angles are nicely framed in many ways and some would even make for cool one-shot visuals or artwork, it’s just too much excess and the frequent-ness of how often it happens just grows tiring and openly distracting after a while. It does calm down during the second act, but there are still a few moments where it stands out. In terms of the style overall, it doesn’t really feel like the movie requires it and it doesn’t offer much that couldn’t have been done either within live action or even just purely animated. The textures on the people can look decently impressive on occasion (mainly on Winstone, Jolie and Gleeson), but the rest of the cast look like PS2 characters and many of the dramatic action scenes can look super fake. The backgrounds for the most part look pretty great and even genuinely real in some shots, and it feels like this style works better when it’s trying to look like a stylistic form of reality rather than genuine reality, but since it’s trying to look photo-realistic, its stuck in the uncanny valley.

Even though this motion-capture technology is now gone for good (and maybe for the best), it can’t be argued that it left a legacy that nobody is going to forget, at least carrying more of one than this movie ever would. It’s ironic that this film is all about preserving legacy and the ways in which people remember you truthfully or not, because it barely does anything to stand out outside of using a technology that most people are already conflicted on to begin with. While at least other outings with this style have had intriguing and unique elements that either lend themselves to the visuals more or can coast on their content to offer something worth looking back on, Beowulf doesn’t get that luxury and instead just exists as a mostly hollow action flick. Some of the acting is okay, it does try to be more interesting than its generic origins, and the visuals can look pretty good and interesting in parts, but it is just a style that can’t fully work around its obvious shortcomings. Not awful, but there are much better stories out there that are worth watching instead.