Amateurish, rotoscoping fiasco . . . A missed opportunity

Rating: Null/10 (22 May 2008)

"Beowulf" is a mildly interesting retelling of the classic story that is rendered virtually unwatchable by the CGI motion capture technique used to "film" the actors. The result looks like second-rate animation or third-rate photography. It's actually quite shocking to me that the movie was released in the state that it was. I don't know how any artist with even a semester of an art-school drawing class under his or her belt would be satisfied with that work. It looks like a second draft pre-visualisation for what the film might look like when completed. Whatever their budget and time-line was they obviously needed to double it.
I suppose what it most resembles is a poorly drawn version of "Shrek". But quite frankly that is insulting to "Shrek", because the makers of that film would never put their stamp on characters with such vacant expressions, lack of detail, childish shading, and wooden movement. However there is still a visual similarity between the human "extras" in Shrek that are painted with less precision and the characters in Beowulf. This makes for a creepy experience when you see them in sexually suggestive scenes or using coarse language. It's like a pervert's transformation of a child's film.
Two questions popped into my head when watching the movie. The first question which occurred about five minutes in was, "Can I actually sit through two hours of this crap?" Well, I was able to answer that question with a begrudging, "Yes". The second question was, "Why on Earth did they choose this technique?" That I cannot answer.
The fact is that if they had chosen either pure animation or live action filming, the result would have been incalculably better. John Malkovich is a great actor, but I found myself staring at the face of his character at one point trying to get some clue about his motives, but it was a completely blank slate. It was like watching a mannequin. What a waste of a fine cast. Watching the DVDs extras you get to see Anthony Hopkins in costume or the beautiful Robin Wright Penn on the set and it hammers home the point, "Why?" Why, did they throw away those potentially magical performances for this dreck?
I could go on for pages but due to the space constraints I suppose I need to capture the essence of my objections and it is this: I felt absolutely no emotional connection to any character or event in this film. This is quite rare for me, as I'm an easy sell. So as a piece of art it was a complete failure. It is a quirky oddity that may one day be remembered as the most ambitious example of an abandoned technique. Let us hope so.