computer animation at it's worst

Rating: 1/10 (20 January 2008)

I'm writing this comment mainly to inform those about to go see the movie about one important fact - the whole thing is COMPUTER ANIMATED. And utterly poorly at that.
I had somehow missed this little fact before I went to see it, and as the titles left the screen and the action started, I was more disappointed than I can find words to describe. Instead of an hour and a half of LOTR-style fantasy, what I got was something more akin to watching my nephew play one of his online fantasy computer games.
Computer graphics are fine. If used in good taste, and for the right reason; in the modern cartoon style of for example Shrek or Ratatouille, or as enhancement and backup of real-life action, as in the aforementioned Lord of the Rings.
But why someone would choose to make an ENTIRE movie in the plastic, lifeless, stale, computer game-like style of Beowulf, is utterly beyond me. The computer models are made as likenesses of the real actors. Or perhaps superimposed somehow over real footage of them, I don't know. But the result is some sort of bastard mix of computer animation seemingly mixed with real life action, that I don't honestly don't understand how anyone can find entertaining in the least. It falls completely in between two chairs - it's neither good enough to pass for real life action; nor does it go "all computer" and make use of the tool that computer graphics are, to it's full artistic potential.
It just looks bad. And meanwhile, you know that the actors are doing their job behind those computer model likenesses, which is beyond frustrating - all that hard work gone to waste behind Beowulf's tasteless, artificial exterior. Having some people act out the script with their characters in World of Warcraft (a online fantasy roleplaying game), and just taping that, would have been cheaper for the producers.