Heroes and monsters and dragons, oh my!
URGA MOTW on a Saturday :)
Beowulf in 3-D!
We made the journey to GU Marion today to watch Beowulf in 3-D - cos this is the only cinema in Adelaide that's showing the 3D version.
This age old legend is retold in 3D CGI Motion Capture with a good script by Neil Gaiman & Roger Avery, somewhat *loosely* based on the original story. Beowulf is, according to the font of all knowledge, "an Old English heroic epic poem of anonymous authorship", and I've heard it's the oldest surviving English language stories. Sure, the Bible is older, but it ain't in English (originally).
Plotwise, the original poem doesn't have a huge amount of relevance to modern audiences: Beowulf kills Grendel, Grendel's mother... and years later, a dragon. Ooops, now I've spoiled it for you. Plus Romeo and Juliet both commit suicide at the end of the play, and the Woodcutter saves Little Red Riding Hood from the Big Bad Wolf :p
This movie, however, takes the events of the story and gives it a little more intrigue to hold our interests...
Here be spoilers!
In our movie version, story events are improved by the fact that the evil monster Grendel, isn't so much evil as a grotesque man/demon who has very sensitive hearing and wants the neighbours to keep the noise down. He's also the bastard child of King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) and his secret shame. Once hero Beowulf (Ray Winstone) arrives and rips off Grendel's arm, mummy dearest (Angelina Jolie) gets a bit peeved, and lures Beowulf into her lair, in order to seduce him to get another son. She's not an evil ugly monster like Grendel, she's a beautiful seductress/siren/succubus and Beowulf can't resist.... He of course, tells everyone else he killed her, and Hrothgar makes him heir to the throne before aiding that particular succession rather quickly. Many years later, King Beowulf isn't that much of a happy man. The curse that plagued Hrothgar - a demon child and the memory of the seduction - now plagues Beowulf. His child however takes the form of a dragon that starts burning down the town. Beowulf quickly takes to the challenge to destroy the new threat, but after a spectacular battle, both he and the dragon - his son - perish. The movie finishes with Grendel's mother farewelling Beowulf and turning her eyes to the new king....
This element of the story actually makes it quite a good tale, of man's boasting and the truth of his fallibility. Are you a hero just because you can slaughter men and monsters, even if all they wanted was a bit of peace and quiet? The script is quite fitting (with only a few bits of insanely anachronistic dialogue) although some of the actor's weird Scandanavian accents leave a bit to be desired, and can also be hard to understand. Motion capture has come quite a long way as well, but even with the lighting in this film complementing the eerie air, the characters aren't quite to the level of realism the hype seems to promote. Trust me, this does *not* look like live action[1] yet, but that doesn't mean it's not beautiful. The digital effects improve with every new CG movie, and this is no exception. The reflections and shiny, shiny water/shields/gold here are very impressive.
The 3D works fairly well, and you can forget about it after a while, except for the painfully small glasses and the feeling that you're cross-eyed. Or, rather, you could forget about it if they filmmakers hadn't thought it necessary to do all those standard 'Wow, it's a 3D movie!" shots by having arrows/spears/helmets/candles/swords thrust directly at the audience every five minutes. After a while, such things get tedious, plus it means the non-3D version of this film must be pretty weird to watch, because all those shots would just be confusing.
One other thing that felt out of place was the whole penis-obscuring part of Beowulf's naked fight scene with Grendel. Beowulf feels that he should face this monster without any armour or weapons, so goes in the buff. But then there's all these candlesticks, bits of wood, other men's helmets etc etc that obscure Beowulf's nakedness in a very Austin Powers-like fashion. It kind of seems pointless (excuse the pun). Why not just always shoot him from waist up/behind? Or even just have him wear a loincloth or something? The laughter in the cinema was obvious that this whole scene was funny due to the stupidness of it, but it really didn't match with the tone of the rest of the movie.
Still, it was quite an impressive tale, and a good cinematic experience. However, I don't think the non-3D version would be quite as good.
7/10
Kind of a pity that this Neil Gaiman film, with its HUGE release on thousands of screens, will probably earn far more money than his other release this year, Stardust, which is a much better and well made movie.
[1] We did see a trailer for a 3D live action version of "Journey to the centre of the Earth" coming out next year. It's like we've time-warped back to the 1950's with their 3D movies!
Beowulf in 3-D!
We made the journey to GU Marion today to watch Beowulf in 3-D - cos this is the only cinema in Adelaide that's showing the 3D version.
This age old legend is retold in 3D CGI Motion Capture with a good script by Neil Gaiman & Roger Avery, somewhat *loosely* based on the original story. Beowulf is, according to the font of all knowledge, "an Old English heroic epic poem of anonymous authorship", and I've heard it's the oldest surviving English language stories. Sure, the Bible is older, but it ain't in English (originally).
Plotwise, the original poem doesn't have a huge amount of relevance to modern audiences: Beowulf kills Grendel, Grendel's mother... and years later, a dragon. Ooops, now I've spoiled it for you. Plus Romeo and Juliet both commit suicide at the end of the play, and the Woodcutter saves Little Red Riding Hood from the Big Bad Wolf :p
This movie, however, takes the events of the story and gives it a little more intrigue to hold our interests...
Here be spoilers!
In our movie version, story events are improved by the fact that the evil monster Grendel, isn't so much evil as a grotesque man/demon who has very sensitive hearing and wants the neighbours to keep the noise down. He's also the bastard child of King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) and his secret shame. Once hero Beowulf (Ray Winstone) arrives and rips off Grendel's arm, mummy dearest (Angelina Jolie) gets a bit peeved, and lures Beowulf into her lair, in order to seduce him to get another son. She's not an evil ugly monster like Grendel, she's a beautiful seductress/siren/succubus and Beowulf can't resist.... He of course, tells everyone else he killed her, and Hrothgar makes him heir to the throne before aiding that particular succession rather quickly. Many years later, King Beowulf isn't that much of a happy man. The curse that plagued Hrothgar - a demon child and the memory of the seduction - now plagues Beowulf. His child however takes the form of a dragon that starts burning down the town. Beowulf quickly takes to the challenge to destroy the new threat, but after a spectacular battle, both he and the dragon - his son - perish. The movie finishes with Grendel's mother farewelling Beowulf and turning her eyes to the new king....
This element of the story actually makes it quite a good tale, of man's boasting and the truth of his fallibility. Are you a hero just because you can slaughter men and monsters, even if all they wanted was a bit of peace and quiet? The script is quite fitting (with only a few bits of insanely anachronistic dialogue) although some of the actor's weird Scandanavian accents leave a bit to be desired, and can also be hard to understand. Motion capture has come quite a long way as well, but even with the lighting in this film complementing the eerie air, the characters aren't quite to the level of realism the hype seems to promote. Trust me, this does *not* look like live action[1] yet, but that doesn't mean it's not beautiful. The digital effects improve with every new CG movie, and this is no exception. The reflections and shiny, shiny water/shields/gold here are very impressive.
The 3D works fairly well, and you can forget about it after a while, except for the painfully small glasses and the feeling that you're cross-eyed. Or, rather, you could forget about it if they filmmakers hadn't thought it necessary to do all those standard 'Wow, it's a 3D movie!" shots by having arrows/spears/helmets/candles/swords thrust directly at the audience every five minutes. After a while, such things get tedious, plus it means the non-3D version of this film must be pretty weird to watch, because all those shots would just be confusing.
One other thing that felt out of place was the whole penis-obscuring part of Beowulf's naked fight scene with Grendel. Beowulf feels that he should face this monster without any armour or weapons, so goes in the buff. But then there's all these candlesticks, bits of wood, other men's helmets etc etc that obscure Beowulf's nakedness in a very Austin Powers-like fashion. It kind of seems pointless (excuse the pun). Why not just always shoot him from waist up/behind? Or even just have him wear a loincloth or something? The laughter in the cinema was obvious that this whole scene was funny due to the stupidness of it, but it really didn't match with the tone of the rest of the movie.
Still, it was quite an impressive tale, and a good cinematic experience. However, I don't think the non-3D version would be quite as good.
7/10
Kind of a pity that this Neil Gaiman film, with its HUGE release on thousands of screens, will probably earn far more money than his other release this year, Stardust, which is a much better and well made movie.
[1] We did see a trailer for a 3D live action version of "Journey to the centre of the Earth" coming out next year. It's like we've time-warped back to the 1950's with their 3D movies!