Rating:

After creeping me out with the dead-eyed characters of Polar Express, Robert Zemeckis takes another stab at a film populated entirely by CGI. This time, he tackles the Old English epic poem, Beowulf. While the film does contain fair amount of the source material, writers Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary made some changes to get it to the big screen. Paramount released the Blu-Ray today, so let’s check out the trailer and then after the jump, check out my review of Beowulf.

Using RealD technology, a 3D stereoscopic projection technology that was also used to film Monster House, Robert Zemeckis brings us Beowulf, a film adapted from the Old English poem no one wanted to read in school. The poem detailed the exploits of Beowulf, a hero who travels to Denmark to help the king of the Danes by killing Grendel, a monster who has been attacking and killing the king’s people whenever they gathered to celebrate. Beowulf does this and then must later battle Grendel’s upset mother in her lair located beneath a lake. He later becomes king of his own people and late in life, must battle an unnamed dragon who is pretty pissed off about some stolen treasure. Beowulf beats the dragon but later dies from the wounds he recieved. To the dismay of litereary purists everywhere, Zemeckis and team do not follow this story completely and the film suffers a bit because of it.

In this telling, Beowulf (Ray Winstone) and his crew do travel to help King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) get rid of their party crashing monster, Grendel (Crispin Glover). Afterwards, Beowulf confronts Grendel’s mother (Angelina Jolie) as well. This is all shown in the first chapter and is extremely well done. A pretty fun watch as you are immediately shown all the nifty camera tricks CGI allows, and the actors really com through in regards to their characters. All of the voice work is wonderful and if you check out any of the behind-the-scenes footage, everyone seemed to really be into their roles as they were not just doing the voices, but also physically acting out every scene. Winstone’s actual physical appearance may not match Beowulf, but his voice is damn near perfect for him. Grendel is presented as a monstrous humanoid who looks like his organs are on the outside and coupled with Glover’s voice (speaking in Old English, no less), he is portrayed less as a monster and more of a sympathetic creature whose violence towards Hrothgar’s people is not out of evil, but something else out of his control. This is not a big issue in the context of the film, especially when the motivations of Grendel’s mother is later shown later in the film, but he does seem a bit neutered in comparison to the Grendel in the poem. But it is when Beowulf confronts Grendel’s mother, a mother Beowulf beheads in the original story, that the film hits a stumbling block.

See, instead of the hero Beowulf, we get the man. A flawed man. A man who wants immortality more than anything else. In Beowulf’s time, to live forever means to have people create songs about you, and tell tales of your adventures and conquests long after you have turned to ash. He makes a deal with Grendel’s mother to ensure that this will happen, a deal that will come back to bite him in his naked ass. The second act is where the film stumbles a bit and details flaws in Beowulf’s character that almost make him unlikeable as a central character. It is also when the character of Unferth (John Malkovich), who plays a very central role in the beginning of the film, fades into the background. Unferth is the king’s trusted adviser and a possible snake-in-the-grass. He is the one who challenges Beowulf in regards to Beowulf’s stories of adventure. He has also just begun following the teachings of Christianity. He plays an important role in this portion of the film, it is a shame that he blends in with the other characters mid-way through. A love triangle between King Beowulf, Queen Wealtheow (Robin Wright Penn) and his mistress is introduced that takes up a bit of screen time and is just not that interesting, especially after the fancy visuals start to lose the wow factor.

But the movie gets back on track with the third act, and the introduction of the dragon. Zemeckis pulls all the tricks out of his CGI hat with this final act, and the battle between Beowulf and the dragon display everything that can be done right when using computer animation. It is an enthralling fight scene and probably the best man vs. dragon ever put on to film that takes place on land, sea and in air. While the ending is ambiguous, and the character of Beowulf does redeem himself somewhat, this last act helps save the film to a certain degree.

Overall, Beowulf was a big step in the right direction in regards to CGI and motion-capture technology. RealD is leaps beyond past CGI efforts, giving scenes actual depth. The motion-capture technology, and how it was implemented in this film, is spot on with the characters moving believably no matter what their actions may be. There is still some issues to overcome such as complex facial animations and overcoming the plastic look of the human body. It would have also been nice if 1/2 the treatment given to the main cast had been given, or 1/3 of the treatment given to Jolie’s computerized tits, to other bit characters as they sometimes looked like they would be more at home in a Shrek film. However the creatures, specifically Grendel and the dragon, were exquisitely detailed and were an absolute blast to watch in action.

Although the film does suffer from a few stumbling blocks in the middle, it does redeem itself with the finale. Definitely worth checking out for the first and last act of the film as well as checking out the technical achievements made in the field of computer animation. Still a lot of room for improvement, but Beowulf shows that they are getting there pretty quickly.

As for the Blu-Ray itself, Beowulf is letterboxed at 2.35:1 and the Disc contains an AVC 1080p HD transfer running at an average of 30 Mbps. The film is sharp and clear with no grain to be found. All of the meticulous CGI work looks even more amazing in this presentation, as well as the exceptional lighting used throughout the film. The Blu-Ray release uses a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio track running at 48 kHz and an average of 3.0 Mbps. The audio work matches the visuals in their intricacy and placement, making good work of all of my speakers, including the rear ones. My only complaint would be that while my subwoofer was being used quite nicely in some areas, especially with Alan Silvestri’s score, I was a bit disappointed with it being neglected somewhat during some action scenes where you would expect some extra oomph.

The extras on the Blu-ray Disc are the same as the DVD release aside from one. You get a 24-minute documentary titled “A Hero’s Journey: The Making of Beowulf” and shows you exactly how the film was created, with a lot of footage of how the motion capture work was performed. It is a very fascinating and informative documentary and well worth a watch, especially if you are interested in how they pulled everything off. Robert Zemeckis and his team went through a lot of trouble to make sure that the actions of the actors movements translated believably to their 3d animated counterpart. In “Beasts of Burden: Designing the Creatures of Beowulf“, you get about 7-minutes of interviews with the people who created the looks of Beowulf, Beowulf’s Mother, and the dragon. This also includes concept art and models.

“The Origins of Beowulf” is a 5-minute extra with a little info on the original poem and writers Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary discussing how they adapted the original story for the big screen and why they changed what they did. “Creating the Ultimate Beowulf” is a quick, 2-minute look into the look and voice of Beowulf. “The Art of Beowulf” is 5 minutes of pre-production art work and Zemeckis discussing wanting to make the ultimate fantasy film. There are also deleted scenes. The animation is not complete with these, and while it is interesting to see some of the early CGI work before they got all dressed up, they do not offer anything new to the main plot.

Also included, exclusively on the Blu-Ray release, is a feature titled “In the Volume“. This feature takes advantage of Blu-ray’s Picture-in-Picture abilities and if enabled, you can watch the film while a smaller box on the lower-right shows the actors as they were filming the scene you are watching. You also have “Conversation with Robert Zemeckis” a 10-minute Q and A session with Zemeckis and students at the University of Southern California. An feature titled “The Journey Continues” is 20-minutes of extended material from “A Hero’s Journey”.Lastly, you have the theatrical trailer in HD. That’s a fairly impressive amount of extras, so if you are a fan of the film, the Blu-Ray release is definitely something you will want to pick up.