| Created 007.11.16; Updated 2007.11.16 |
This article originally appeared in British Weekly.
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Beowulf Vikings Take Polar Express SANTA MONICA, CA (British Weekly) 11/15/07 — "Beowulf…has a real visceral quality. He cares only about what he can kill, what he can eat, who he can screw", says Beowulf director Robert Zemeckis. The director's previous film The Polar Express had developed a technique called performance capture, that he used again for Beowulf. "The great thing about the technique is that it allowed someone like me, who is 5'10" and a little on the plump side, to play a 6'6" golden-haired Viking", says Departed actor Ray Winstone who plays Beowulf. More... |
Photos copyright Paramount Pictures
The key to telling the oldest epic tale in the English language is to make sense of the original 3,000-line poem. Based on a 6th century battle in Denmark, the story came from Anglo-Saxons in northern England two hundred years later who saw themselves not as British, but as Vikings. The original poem, written in Old English on thin sheets of shaved leather, doesn't make complete sense. The monster Grendel never attacks king Hrothgar, only torments him. Beowulf ventures into the lair of Grendel's mother to kill her, yet he emerges from the cave with Grendel's head. Beowulf screenwriters Neil Gaiman and Roger Avery devised a clever solution.
"Basically, Neil came up with the key operator of a unified field theory of Beowulf, which I had been working on for a decade", says Avery. "It became obvious to me that Beowulf had fallen prey to the same temptations I surmised had befallen Hrothgar, the temptations of a siren. He had made a pact with a demon." Avary co-wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay Pulp Fiction. Gaiman's four-part DC Comics novel Stardust was recently released as a movie starring Claire Danes.
Given a brilliant interpretation of a classic epic, does Beowulf the movie succeed? With powerful performances for its British actors, including Brendan Gleeson who's great as Beowulf's friend Wiglaf, Beowulf makes a convincing try. Anthony Hopkins, the first actor cast, chose to use his native Welsh accent in his role as King Hrothgar "because Welsh is an ancient language, several thousand years old." Crispin Glover, as the tortured monster Grendel, voices his lines in Old English.
Unfortunately, performance capture still has flaws. The photo-realistically animated characters often show a Toy Story-like lifeless stare in their eyes. Angelina Jolie is fully nude for the entire film, but as a plastic Barbie doll version. Ultimately, what's missing is the full nuance of the actor's performances. Monsters are more convincing. Grendal is truly gross, not just biting the head off a victim, but chewing it thoroughly.
Beowulf is one of the largest 3D film releases ever, on more than 700 screens nationwide. I enjoyed the IMAX 3D version at Universal. It's also being shown in 2D.
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Release date: November 16, 2007
PG-13 for intense sequences of violence including disturbing images,
some sexual material and nudity
1 hr. 53 min.
