I saw Beowulf and I have to say that I was somewhat disappointed. I don’t know what I went in looking for – maybe a deeper story, maybe more convincing acting, maybe a happy ending – but whatever I was looking for in it, it wasn’t there. Which was further deflating because I was so looking forward to the movie being great. Here’s a list of the good and bad:
- My first bitch is that it was animated. The style used was really cool back when Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within came out, but leaves me feeling like I should’ve saved my money and waited for video now, six years later. Also, it seemed to detract from the ability of the actors to convey emotions, which leads me to…
- The acting. The depth of the characters was lacking to put it mildly. I know Beowulf was a badass, but I know nothing of the other characters in his tale, and the movie left me feeling like they are all as flat as the pages on which the poem was originally written 1500 years ago. I expect more from the likes of Anthony Hopkins and John Malkovich. To top it off, the voicing was not only bad, but the accents were inconsistent, which brings me to my final complaint…
- Crispin Glover’s speaking as Grendel. Now, I thought that there was no way I would be unable to understand an actor after The Usual Suspects , but boy was I wrong. Grendel’s voice is a mix of Gollum and Fenster with a little Germanic-based something-or-other mixed in there for good measure. What it all adds up to is a character that you can’t fucking understand!!!! Hello! Who thought up that great trick? I mean, at least with Fenster, you didn’t need to understand him to figure out what important information was being passed to certain major players about events! I respect Crispin Glover as an actor and artist, but there’s certain things you don’t do in a major role in a movie, and one of them is speak unintelligibly.
- On the flip side of all of that, the action scenes were second to none. I don’t want to put any spoilers in this review (and I hope I haven’t screwed up on that count during my little rants above), but the action scenes are amazing. There is just the right amount of gore to be real enough (with much more elluded to, which might be worse to people with vivid imaginations and weak stomachs) without going overboard.
I haven’t read the poem yet (it’s on my reading list, and I’ve even excavated the Seamus Heaney version out of one of my book boxes), so I can’t say how closely it follows the traditional story. I will say that the movie was missing something. I don’t know if it was the script trying to stick with the original story and not translating to the screen well, or if it was Neil Gaiman’s early habit of writing characters with which readers don’t connect rearing its ugly head, or if it was Roger Avary sucking (which wouldn’t surprise me since he’s climbing his way out of the pit of despair that was Silent Hill), but whatever it was, it cause a gaping hole in the movie.
If you’re looking for really well-animated graphic battle scenes, this is it. If you’re looking for something deep and fulfilling, skip it and go see P.S. I Love You or something.
