8 Points: Beowulf

Spoilers abound, especially for those of you not familiar with the original poem. Even if you are, I may ruin surprises.

So here goes.

1. See this in 3-D. Now. I mean it when I say that this is, bar none, the best 3-D work I have ever seen. Where the CG mocap animation has flaws, the 3-D smoothes them out and more than makes up for them.


2. I don't care what the rhetoric is; this is an animated film. Yes, it is in the direction of photo-real, but it stops short of traditional feature film effects trying to pass for real. It is stylized, especially when it comes to the light-like elements.


3. I wish they had pushed the style further. Early talk was of a moving Frank Frazetta painting; the final result is true to this in design, but is too polished for a real Frazetta feel. Maybe next time?


4. My three favorite moments: Beowulf digging through a sea-monster's eye, and being so worked up, he can only scream his name; Beowulf proclaiming his own legendary status to Grendel, just before ripping his arm off; the entire dragon fight.


5. This may be the best cinematic dragon yet. And certainly the best dragon battle yet. Eat your heart out Sean Connery. The bar has been raised for The Hobbit, if it ever gets made.


6. Roger Avary and Neil Gaiman have some serious credit due; they did one hell of an adaptation, that not only maintains the tone and feel of the epic poem, with its boastful braggarts and ritualized deeds, but feels energetic and exciting in a modern way. And the few additions they made tie the entire narrative together... Hrothgar fathering Grendel, and Beowulf fathering the dragon, make Beowulf's last stand, and the whole progression of the story, resonate in relation to the earlier confrontations. Balanced with the coming of Christianity (a contradiction in the original poem, as it is about Old English gods, but transcribed by Christian monks), and the (classic) death of the Old Ways, and you have a damn fine movie.


7. This is a truly mythic film; 300 wishes it could get you to care about its characters half this well, or get you invested in the battles a tenth what this film manages to do. Bravo.


8. James Cameron's Avatar is going to kick all of our asses.