"Beowulf" (3D) (2007) - Movie Review

The difference between “300” and “Beowulf” is that the humans in the latter take the aid of Computer generated animation too. In more explanatory terms it means that it is an animation based upon the computer imagery giving an illusion and reality of the actors/actresses in flesh and blood. It is a legendary story of hero and his deadly skill of slaying creatures of disgusting elements wrote as a poem with anonymous author. When I went to “300”, it is for the experience rather than the story and it appealed to its material. It did not alter much for “Beowulf” and with 3D it stressed more on the experience. It is truly entertaining and loyally flawed for its genre but miraculously survives by animation and screenplay.

Growing up around these legendary tales of great warrior as that of “Conan the Barbarian” and lot other movies, as the time goes by it is a skill to present the film in a different dimension. Director Robert Zemeckis who knows the mechanics of it, weaves the tale through the spectacular visuals of computer animation and the trump card beauty factor of Angelina Jolie. It is something unexplainable when the superficial element becomes a deception and seduction of believability which goes as mystical as the demoniac character of Grendel’s (voice of Crispin Glover) mother (voice of Angelina Jolie).

The 3D is breathtaking when the crispness of the minute strata of skin, complexion and the touch to the screen factor hits us as hard as a stormy wind but still feels as a breezy air. It cringes when the details of Grendel are navigated so close to our eyes and the yellow blood and saliva of the monster oozes onto us. And I think about the MPAA rating of PG-13 wherein it champions itself into the region of R-rating comfortably. It struck me quite surprising and some what threatening when the animation is used as a luring factor of PG-13 viewers in actuality goes far beyond it.

The known story gets over fast and as predicted. The turn occurs when Beowulf (voice of Ray Winstone) meets Grendel’s mother. A warrior tipped into the wells of lust and greed. As solid, structured and muscular, he looks, as she circles around to make him the prey of two deceiving mistakes in life. There is not much after that to see the long after his reign, he is tired and helpless. But wait, what am I talking? There is no analysis of the character but an observation and imaginative games of the audience in terms of their perception moulds the layers of them. This weird property of it borderlines into a film which skates on the shallowness of the characters and manages to do it successfully enough to make it disappear in the midst of grandeur.

True to its marketing, the picture will offer a good entertaining but looking within, it has more holes and tears than Beowulf making over the generations of demons. We never understand the real agenda of the demons. They acquire wealth and store it in the depths of a cave. What is the use of it? Mixing fantasy with the real world has its share of making us know more about the persons in it. As it goes for King Hrothgar (voice of Anthony Hopkins), who has a secret which gets passed on to Beowulf. Mentioned earlier, the demolishing beauty of computer generated Jolie does answers their instant fall in integrity and character, but it would have been better to stop with it. The film ends with a note of some reform in Beowulf but it does not nail strong enough with the screen. It wears out along with the animation which becomes nothing new after an hour and half in to the film.

With contradicting opinions of mine, I had a good time. I would not go about hailing high for its visuals and cast but it does not aim high either. I got irked by the brutality but it is required to hate a character merely for its appearance and its merciless visceral executions of its victims. We hardly know any of them and it should be for a movie focused to fit in the genre. The errors props up when they try to explain themselves for fulfilling their conscience.