"Beowulf" - promo poster
A review of "Beowulf" directed by Robert Zemeckis
"Beowulf" is an epic Anglo-Saxon poem written while the Angles and Saxons were still settling in England and set in the 6th century in north western Europe. As one of the earliest examples of proto-English it has become a revered English treasure. As a rattling good monster killing story it has been popular for over a thousand years and perfect material for a monster movie. Enter Neil Gaiman, Roger Avary and Robert Zemeckis.
I saw this film in IMAX 3D and in my opinion it succeeds on every level. Those who find significant fault with it either simply don't like Hero vs Monster movies or they just don't grasp the subtlety of the plot. When I emerged from the cinema after 2 hours of high octane entertainment I had no hesitation in awarding it 5 stars out of 5. Just to be sure I went back a few days later and saw it again and it was perfect! I couldn't find a real flaw. Every scene was important, there was a lot of high excitement action (about half the movie), you didn't have to wait long for it and IT ALL HUNG TOGETHER! Furthermore the eerie ending left me with a feeling of disquiet that lasted for days. This is not just another piece of over-the-top heroism against huge monsters for no good reason, filled with cheap US morality and a cornball ending. This is THE KING OF HEROIC MOVIES and it is true to its roots, with a depth that you just don't find in 99% of its competitors.
Let me deal with the visuals first. It is all computer animation but actors features have been imprinted onto the characters. This is generally extremely effective, for example Anthony Hopkins and Angelina Jolie are instantly recognisable and in closeup the characters are generally able to convey the emotional subtleties much as if they were conventionally filmed. There are a few awkward examples but not enough to mar the film.
The middle distance action is where the film suffers most, with occasional examples of CG non realistic running and walking, however this only affects some humans and again it was not enough for me to take a mark off this superb film.
The backdrops are sumptuous in the extreme, with heavily saturated colours in a pleasing harmony. This is the kind of thing you cannot do in reality. I guess you have to love animation to admire this, but this is where painting and film making come together, and all the 3D backdrops, such as the frozen forest from above, the mead hall, the stormy sea, the castle exterior etc are lovely works of art.
The monsters are wonderfully realised and all strikingly different. My only objection is that they are all over large (as they were in the Lord of the Rings). It is not specified in the poem how large Grendel is, but I would have thought 9' would have been enough, (rather than 15). The dragon is specified at 50' long (in the movie it appears twice that), and the sea monsters in the poem seem around the size of a walrus (rather than 50' long). Still, many would say "the bigger the better", in any event it is a minor point and again is not enough to damage the film.
The area that will anger the lover of the original poem most however, is the liberty taken with the plot, most importantly the rewriting of Grendel's mother: the Sea Hag. In the poem, the hag is hideous, and after a tough fight Beowulf kills her and that is that. In the film she becomes the pivot of the entire story. She is deliciously beautiful: Angelina Jolie, golden and naked, with just her nipples reduced and vulval cleft erased, at her luminous seductive best, enough to make any heterosexual man want to have sex with her. Beowulf is seduced by her as was Hrothgar before him and sires a monster, as did Hrothgar before him, which then terrorises the kingdom and must be killed, hopefully by a new hero, and the cycle can continue.
The irony is superb! It is the Dragon Demon Queen that really rules this kingdom, as evidenced by the dragon on the kings crown and his golden dragon drinking horn. The horn device pops up throughout the movie, marking the movement of the demon queen's favour. It is a very clever and effective innovation. The demon queen chooses as her lover and father of her next child the greatest hero, since only he is mighty enough to slay her own son. This is Greek tragedy magnified to demigod status. But before she can love this hero she must exact revenge, though not on him. It's all good gear and hangs together in a rather twisted but nonetheless believable way.
What is the point of her actions? Is she trying to breed successively better monsters until they can no longer be beaten, so that she can then destroy the hated human kind? Is she just lonely down there in her cave and desperate for some good loving (but with very high standards, so that only the greatest of men will do)? Is she perhaps really only taking care of her kingdom by ensuring that it will have the best possible king? Any of these are convincing motives.
I choose to believe that this "monster movie" is really a love story. Neither Beowulf, nor Hrothgar, nor (we presume) his predecessors, can resist the love of the demon queen. I choose to believe that she really does love each of them, and is not lying to them. The kiss she gives the dead Beowulf demonstrates this amply for me, if her giving herself in the cave were not evidence enough. And the heroes in turn each love her, they cannot deny it. Yet they are revolted by her circumstances and bound to their own people and cannot bring themselves to venture back into the cave for more love. Perhaps also the prospect of engendering a whole tribe of inhuman monsters keeps them away. Under such circumstances is it not surprising that the son could grow up to hate the father, and all his race? So much so that he could carry out mass murder... Conceivable yes!
As a general rule I deplore the alteration of a classic work when adapted for film, LOTR was a great example of ruining a cohesive storyline for no good reason. Beowulf on the other hand is a different kettle of fish. It is a classic only because it is so ancient and because it has 4 great monster fights in it. Having read the poem I can tell you that as written it is pretty boring. The action sequences are too short, the character introductions are too long and there are a number of stories sketched in, such as the tale of Ohthere and his sons Eanmund and Eadgils, and that of Finn of the Frisians which may have been of interest at the time but are irrelevant to most of us today and only disrupt the flow of the main theme. Once the boring and irrelevant bits have been removed you are left with a hero who has a contest with Breca the mighty, goes to Denmark and slays Grendel and his mother, returns home to Sweden, receives the throne of the Geats, rules for 50 years, fights a dragon and dies. There is no compelling thread to it all, it is just another story of a hero who becomes king.
The brilliant idea of the Demon Queen adds a disquieting mood to the whole show. Especially on the second viewing. All things are done to fit her purposes, and she does not die. We do not know what will happen with Wiglaf at the end, but we expect the inevitable. Males especially may be disquieted by the knowledge that they CANNOT say no to sex with such a desirable being, even though she be a demon and scourge of the kingdom. Perhaps it is a flaw in the male sex, certainly it is a weakness, but it is a weakness that heterosexual males all share. It shows Beowulf as a human, and his inability to do anything about it, also shows him as human, but these are not the bolted-on constructs that we so often see, such as alcoholism or wife-beating, used to break the hero down, these are cogent, ineluctable artifacts of masculinity! This is the genius of the idea: It all hangs together!
By rewriting Grendel's mother as the Demon Queen, Gaiman and Avary have IMPROVED ON A CLASSIC! Now this is not easily done, and in 99% of all cases such a rewrite does not work, but this is of the 1% that does! And it is clear to me that for them this has been a labour of love. I note that once they had recast the story with the demon queen as the centre they managed to keep almost all of the rest of original, sometimes very cleverly transformed. Most notably the dragon, that is merely an odd appendage to the original, plays a major part in the new, with he and Beowulf killing each other as in the poem, only the motivations are different. Wiglaf who only appears at the end of the poem appears as Beowulf's right hand man from the beginning in the film, but the character is true. Finn, who is the subject of the long but irrelevant discourse in the poem makes a cameo in the film. Hrunting, the sword, melts in the film as the giant's sword does in the poem. There are many examples. Only someone who truly loves the original would go to such trouble to keep as many details as possible.
And there is the obsession with historical accuracy. The mead hall is correct. The boats correct. The armour. The characters even speak Old English at times, for example when Grendel talks to his mother: "har-med him not, har-med him not." And when the tale of Beowulf is enacted in play before his subjects. Surely a labour of love. As in LOTR when Quenya is used, it lends a beautiful air of authenticity to the proceedings.
This is as good as any other great film that I have seen. I give it 10 out of 10. It has some small flaws, most notably the occasional awkward computer animation, but they do not, for me, damage the film. Everything is top class: the acting, the casting, the look, the plot, the motivation, the action, the colour, the sound. An overwhelming ride. A wonderful job. THE KING OF HEROIC MOVIES!!!
Well done to all concerned!
score 10/10
Warren Mars - January 6, 2008