Good film but I don't get this motion capture technique

Rating: 7/10 (3 December 2007)

Well, if this had been made as a live action feature, I would have enjoyed it a lot more. To me there's no sense in using motion capture instead of live action. OK, the director seems to think that he may have more freedom with camera moves, art direction and the aging problem, not to speak of using the not very slim or athletic Ray Winstone (who I really like as a live action actor) as the hunky hero. The only exception may be the 3-D part, which I wasn't able to see. But I'm pretty sure that this could have been made for the same amount of money as a live action feature with lots of CGI. In "Beowulf" I haven't seen anything that wouldn't be possible in live action/CGI. The dragon? Look at "Reign of fire" or even "Dragonheart" and "Eragon". Complicated camera moves? Look at "The Matrix" and "The lord of the rings". Art direction and production design? Again, look at "The lord of the rings", "Troy" or "Gladiator". And instead of Ray Winstone (Sorry, Ray) I'm sure there are enough athletic actors capable of this role. To me, the motion capture versions of Hopkins, Malkovich, Gleeson and their colleagues were distracting during the entire movie. The only really good and realistic looking face was that of Angelina Jolie, which sometimes seemed to not really be "overpainted" at all. I'm wishing everyone involved in making this film the very best, but I do hope that this movie won't recoup it's costs and that motion capture will be relegated back to making creatures like "Gollum" or "Grendel" possible, but not making entire movies using it.