Beowulf! (Or: activate fangirl GO)
So rage_goblin and I went to see Beowulf last night. On the one hand, Neil Gaiman co-wrote the screenplay, and there is very little that can be bad when Neil Gaiman is involved. On the other hand, it is Hollywood + a classic, and that usually means death.
It was completely fucking awesome. Go see it. If at all possible, see it in IMAX, because holy CRAP the awesome.
So, the movie is done in motion-capture animation, and it's very obvious that a lot of the scenery and unimportant characters are just pure CG. A lot of it felt like being immersed in a totally awesome video game in 3D. I haven't read Beowulf since senior year of high school, so my memory of the original is very hazy (I went in with "they boast a lot" and "he tears off Grendel's ARM. Rock!") As I watched the movie, I remembered more and more of the original, and I was very pleased with the way it was done. There is a pretty hilarious aspect to the BIG DAMN FIGHT between Beowulf and Grendel, because Beowulf is fighting in the nude, and there are multiple objects conveniently blocking his naughty nether bits. It looks rather deliberately hilarious, because most of the objects are overtly phallic, which has the feel of Neil Gaiman laughing at the constraints of the rating. See also mullenkamp's excellent commentary over here.
Grendel is a very sympathetic villain, and Anthony Hopkins as Hrothgar was completely win and awesome. A little bit of linguistic dorkery, for those of you who care: Grendel and his mother speak in Middle English, as nearly as I can tell, which made me squeal a lot. Their dialect is very specifically and distinctly different from that of Hrothgar and his steading or Beowulf and his men, archaic and guttural, and it took me a moment to clue in to what they were speaking. Once I figured it out, it was very easy for me to follow along, but then I'm a Chaucer geek, so there you go. Also, the Song of Beowulf is performed within the context of the movie, and while it starts out in modern English, I am 99% certain that by the end it has slipped into Old English, which is also fabulously excellent.
The combat scenes were very stylized, which works out beautifully with the epic tradition. I noticed that they kept the tradition of boasting that is a part of the original epic, and even poked fun at it a little bit. The entire thing was gorgeous in its CG. Also, the soundtrack was incredible and I am going to go buy it on iTunes, like, now.
Anyway. Go see Beowulf! I am presently inclined not only to read the original (well, okay, translation since my Old English skills are nonexistent), but also, damn I desperately want to run a Scion game right now. And I will so be buying this movie on DVD posthaste.
It was completely fucking awesome. Go see it. If at all possible, see it in IMAX, because holy CRAP the awesome.
So, the movie is done in motion-capture animation, and it's very obvious that a lot of the scenery and unimportant characters are just pure CG. A lot of it felt like being immersed in a totally awesome video game in 3D. I haven't read Beowulf since senior year of high school, so my memory of the original is very hazy (I went in with "they boast a lot" and "he tears off Grendel's ARM. Rock!") As I watched the movie, I remembered more and more of the original, and I was very pleased with the way it was done. There is a pretty hilarious aspect to the BIG DAMN FIGHT between Beowulf and Grendel, because Beowulf is fighting in the nude, and there are multiple objects conveniently blocking his naughty nether bits. It looks rather deliberately hilarious, because most of the objects are overtly phallic, which has the feel of Neil Gaiman laughing at the constraints of the rating. See also mullenkamp's excellent commentary over here.
Grendel is a very sympathetic villain, and Anthony Hopkins as Hrothgar was completely win and awesome. A little bit of linguistic dorkery, for those of you who care: Grendel and his mother speak in Middle English, as nearly as I can tell, which made me squeal a lot. Their dialect is very specifically and distinctly different from that of Hrothgar and his steading or Beowulf and his men, archaic and guttural, and it took me a moment to clue in to what they were speaking. Once I figured it out, it was very easy for me to follow along, but then I'm a Chaucer geek, so there you go. Also, the Song of Beowulf is performed within the context of the movie, and while it starts out in modern English, I am 99% certain that by the end it has slipped into Old English, which is also fabulously excellent.
The combat scenes were very stylized, which works out beautifully with the epic tradition. I noticed that they kept the tradition of boasting that is a part of the original epic, and even poked fun at it a little bit. The entire thing was gorgeous in its CG. Also, the soundtrack was incredible and I am going to go buy it on iTunes, like, now.
Anyway. Go see Beowulf! I am presently inclined not only to read the original (well, okay, translation since my Old English skills are nonexistent), but also, damn I desperately want to run a Scion game right now. And I will so be buying this movie on DVD posthaste.