The technology and the magic (Contains Major Spoilers)

Rating: 2/10 (30 April 2008)

A few of my friends recommended I go and see Beowulf. They all said that the story wasn't much but that visually it was amazing and to make sure I see it in 3-D.
The story is almost frighteningly small. Beowulf turns up to a kingdom (and a small kingdom at that, it seems to be one hall big sometimes) to rid the king of a monster (WARNING SPOILERS from here on in) and does so only to find out the king was actually the father of the monster as he'd slept with the monsters mother who's also a monster but being played by Angelina Jolie helps make bestiality understandable.
Beowulf then becomes King, sleeps with the Monster Jolie and then a monster son comes after him. Only this time the monster is a dragon!
Sounds great doesn't it. Full of action! We'll to a degree it is full of action but the way producer/director Robert Zemekis was chosen to do it (entirely in 3-D CGI graphics) ends up destroying most of the excitement to be had from this story. The whole film being done as 3-D CGI graphics element stopped me from really getting into the film and the end result was a film that felt like an extremely overlong cut-scene from a video game.
I think this problem with relating to the characters isn't just because they're not real, anime and Fleischer Brothers cartoons have given us numerous characters that we've been able to relate to strongly. I found the original FIST OF THE NORTH incredibly moving when I first saw it. Same with PRINCESS MONONOKE and the original TRANSFORMERS movie
The problem is that BEOWULFS 3-D creations more resemble video game characters then actual animated characters. My 3-D animation teacher told me never to copy directly from real life as the actual animation ends up looking "dead". The key to a great animator is knowing the best way to over-emphasize.
In BEOWULF they used a special software that enabled them to capture the actors performances pretty much exactly but in the conversion to 3-D animation they have for the most part come out dead. The only two actors who escape this are John Malkovich and Angelina Jolie. These actors quirks are so strong that vestiges of their humanity still manage to come across in there on-screen avatars/characters. I never thought they're would be a way of stopping Ray Winstone (star of so many great films such as LADIES AND GENTLEMEN THE AMAZING STAINS, SCUM, NIL BY MOUTH and SEXY BEAST) or Brendan Gleeson from giving magnetic performances but Robert Zemekis found a way. Poor Robin Wright Penn fairs the worst in this process. Such a great subtle actor, her performance is totally lost in the translation to 3D.
Which leads me to the finale of BEOWULF. In the end Beowulf must confront and single- handedly destroy the dragon. In the course of this he is thrown about, shot at with arrows, rides the dragon and nearly falls to his death. We'll in a live action film this would be completely riveting. The 1980's movie DRAGONSLAYER proved how incredible dragons could be in movies. That whole film was based on what an incredibly frightening sight they are. But unfortunately since you know that you don't have control over the video game looking and that all the things you are seeing are being controlled by artists via a computer program there's no reason to become to involved in what's happening on-screen.
The enjoyable things about BEOWULF are all technical. Seeing how detailed computer graphics have become and the new visual fluidity a camera is allowed in a 3-D environment. How realistic water and fire effects can be rendered.
The first 14mins (about the length of a He-man cartoon) are the best. The close ups of objects are great too, such as a shot of pebbles on the beach just before a horse comes crashing over the camera and scatters them.
The worst shots are the wide shots as they show just how cheap and fake 3D can be. One particular shot of Beowulf running on one side of a chasm with his troops on the other firing arrows at the dragon looked like a bad D & D video game.
What makes this sad rather then just a novelty is that Robert Zemeckis used to be such a great director and one of the things he was best with was memorable characters. Remember how many great characters there were in the Back To The Future series? Marty Mcfly, Biff, Doc Brown? All great!
Do you remember Forrest Gump? For all the anti-American sentiment of it in Australia I know plenty of people who found it incredibly emotionally moving and a large part of that was director and the actors attention to performance. It's telling that the most emotional shot in the whole film is a wide shot of Forrest telling his wife that despite his mental handicap he does understand love.
But in his last two outings something has gone terribly wrong. The technology has taken over the film. The vital human element has been lost under a plethora of pixels.
I can't think of anything about the Polar Express that would make me want to see it in the form it is or even show it to my younger relatives (those who are of the age to appreciate that sort of film). Same with BEOWULF! Nothing about the technical approach added to the film. If I had really gotten to see the real Ray Winstone playing Beowulf then maybe the small plot would have been less of a concern because I could have related to him. What's so baffling is that there already exists a successful formula for making ancient stories into great cinematic entertainment. It's called JIM HENSONS STORYTELLER and 90mins of that flies by.