As frustrating as its visual predecessor, "300"...

Rating: 6/10 (31 July 2008)

...Robert "Contact" Zemeckis' "Beowulf" is a visually sumptuous film (which, at $150mil cost, it ought to be!) that unfortunately thoroughly betrays its source material. Not that that kept me from being entertained, understand, but I was still taken aback by such extreme revisionism. Other posters here have detailed the butchery, so I won't bother, but it's a shame that talented scripters like Neil "Stardust" Gaiman and Roger "Killing Zoe" Avary took a decade to deliver such a puerile, exploitative script. If they'd stuck to the real deal, I'd be willing to bet the film would have done better at the box office, but what do I know? The voice work is mostly impeccable, though I noticed a few instances in which the dialog didn't seem to match the animation. "Beowulf" sports plenty of star wattage: Ray "The Departed" Winstone, Anthony "you have to ask?" Hopkins, John "ditto" Malkovich, Crispin "Willard" Glover, the remarkable Brendan "28 Days Later..." Gleeson, Robin Wright "Empire Falls" Penn (who regrettably looks the least like her animated self), and the ever provocative Angelina "Gia" Jolie; all acquit themselves well, but fail to transcend the material, with the possible exception of Gleeson. As they say, it's tough to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
The problem lies partly with the otherwise stunning visuals provided by Gentle "Fight Club" Giant Studios, Sony Pictures "The Polar Express" Imageworks, and W.M. "Van Helsing" Creations. The rendering of the human characters fails to instill them with any real life, particularly in the eyes, and leaves one feeling that one is watching an elaborate computer game. The result is that it's very difficult to establish any real identification with the characters, a fate that "300" suffered as well. More's the pity, since everything else is such a feast. It's all wonderful eye candy, thanks to Norman "War of the Worlds" Newberry's lush art direction and Doug "The Polar Express" Chiang's superb production design, but it all seems ultimately empty and forgettable. The lensing by Robert "The Polar Express" Presley swoops and soars, and must be extremely impressive when viewed in the intended 3-D format (even in 2-D, it's pretty daggone nice), while Jeremiah "The Polar Express" O'Driscoll's editing is clean and concise. Alan "Night at the Museum" Silvestri's score is evocative and not overly manipulative.
For empty-calorie viewing, "Beowulf" succeeds nicely. For devotees of the original epic poem/legend, the film fails in a big way; students of the literature will find nothing of interest here. Watch-once film-making as far as I'm concerned, though should I ever get the chance to watch it in 3-D, I may bite.