Woeful Beowulf creepy for wrong reasons

Rating: 1/10 (27 March 2008)

While one can be impressed with all the gee-whiz technology that went into the making of "Beowulf," in the end it gave me the creeps for the wrong reasons.
The video game, talking avatar feel of the CG was disturbing in the sense that it made me think of cheesy wax museum figures or department store mannequins coming to life after hours.
Another unintended creepiness of the film stemmed from the fact that evidently Zemeckis and company felt that people would be titillated by the gratuitous use of video game-flavored sexual references. Maybe hormone-raging adolescents who enjoy AO-rated Playstation games get a kick out of that sort of thing, but an adult would have to really be in a bad way if digitized breasts and buns turn him or her on.
The fact that animated CG is such a planned, thought out, painstaking, technical process further gives the nudity and sexual overtones a rather deliberate, pornographic air that is repulsive.
A bad decision from the start, one has to ask, why go the CG route? If the goal is realism, then why not a film with real actors and settings? Instead, one is left with the impression that this was intended to be an exercise in showing off and boasting, "Hey! Look what we can do now!" Or, in other words, they make a film likes this simply because nowadays they can. And yet, in spite of all the technical sweat and tears, the human characters still end up looking unnatural and unconvincing.
In addition, the Grendel character, who looks like a cross between Gollum and the mummy from the Brendan Fraser movies, tears bodies in half and bites off heads, but the video game gore splattered everywhere is also unnatural and not convincing enough to elicit any kind of shock or horror.
I also had the impression that the CG technology process overruled the subtle and sensitive nuances that make great films, and watching the special features portion of the DVD confirmed that impression. The actors, out of costume on their virtual, sterile stages, and therefore out of their natural element, appeared to be going through the motions while the director seemed satisfied that one take was good enough, since anything that might be lacking could be added in later by computer artists and technicians.
With regard to the script, I am not troubled by the fact that it took liberties with the original myth. What does trouble me is that once again we have an example of a story in which we are suppose to identify with characters simply because they exist, without any substantial character development being breathed into them.
Hence, we are to root for Beowulf not for any number of admirable character qualities, but only because the script says he IS the hero of the tale. Or perhaps because he is relatively less repulsive than other characters in the story.
A sad waste of expertise, money, technology...this kind of CG may work for "Shrek" or something like "The Polar Express" that are intended to be pure, unrealistic fantasy, but it is still not yet ready for subject matter that is intended to be taken seriously. And "Beowulf" makes me wonder if it ever will be.