Not a bad retelling, but why animate it?

Rating: 5/10 (14 January 2011)

With motion capture all the rage in Hollywood these days – blame Gollum – director Robert Zemeckis and his cronies have been keen to adapt the CGI technology for their own needs. BEOWULF follows hot on the heels of the same director's POLAR EXPRESS and a new adaptation of the age-old Anglo-Saxon poem about a hero battling a terrible monster.
As a keen follower of the literary Beowulf, I was eager to find out how the story had been adapted from the original. The good news is that this is the complete version, including flashbacks to Beowulf's swimming challenge and the climax with the dragon. The bad news is that the stuff with the dragon has been linked to the earlier Grendel story via a whole new subplot. Clearly a consequence of the desire to tie up loose ends in favour of neater storytelling, but I didn't think it was required.
Nevertheless, Neil Gaiman's script is above average in paying homage to the original. As for the mo-cap, I'm not so impressed. For me, this film looks like a cartoon, albeit an expensive, 3D-style cartoon. The look of flesh and hair is spot on, but the eyes are dead and soulless, which means even the hardest-working voice actors struggle to breathe life into their on-screen creations.
Zemeckis isn't a favourite director of mine. His emphasis is always on the superficial, and this film follows a straightforward action-adventure template by providing plenty of spectacle and not a lot of depth. Although it misses out the bit with the dragon, I found the Gerard Butler starrer, BEOWULF & GRENDEL, to be a much more atmospheric and engaging adaptation of the heroic poem.