VIEW FILM STILLS: Beowulf
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GLENN KENNY'S REVIEW (posted 11/15/07)

Ladies and gentlemen, I have seen the future of motion-picture entertainment, and to tell you the truth, it's a little goofy. Director/would-be visionary Robert Zemeckis's second feature-length foray into computer-animation enhanced 3-D digital whatever-the-hell-you-call-it is — in stark contrast to the kid-oriented first, The Polar Express — a rip-roaring, rip-snorting, rip-your-arm-out-of-its-socket, gore-steeped, and sex-soaked medieval (on-your-ass) adventure. As a boyhood-and-beyond fan of Ray Harryhausen pictures, I like a good flying, fire-breathing dragon as much as the next fellow. Beowulf's excesses, though, are such that the film ought to carry the subtitle …But This Is Ridiculous.

Winstone, in real life a hefty fellow, has been toned down and buffed up via this new brand of movie magic to play Beowulf, a lusty he-man who offers his services to the besieged Danish kingdom presided over by King Snuffleupagus, I'm sorry, Hrothgar (Hopkins), after one of his mead parties is broken up by demon Grendel. The very anguished Grendel looks like one of those Visible Man dolls you had in biology class, only after being tossed into a raging fire and left there an hour or so, and is voiced with predictable eccentric and irritating shriekiness by Glover. Stripping down to battle Grendel, his naughty bits camouflaged in a manner critics have already likened to an Austin Powers flick (obviously the filmmakers wanted to chase that PG-13 rating, but I also doubt there are a lot of animators working today who specialize in dangling, swinging penises; too bad the character played by Jonah Hill in Superbad is fictional), Beowulf makes reasonably quick work of the creep. Only to find that he has to contend with the villain's mom, an otherworldly temptress who, as it happens, already has the current king in a bit of a bind. Said mom is played by Jolie, also stark naked, but in this case with liquid gold constantly camouflaging her naughty bits. The actress here attempts to repeat the Natasha Fatale accent she used to such memorable effect in Alexander, but more often sounds like the buzzard matriarch ("Brink me a chicken, Keeeel-er!") from the old Looney Tunes shorts. This film, like our own culture, alas, buys into the dubious proposition that Jolie is the most irresistible woman in the known universe; hence, she conquers Our Hero's scruples, such as they are, without breaking a sweat. (Unless that's what the liquid gold is supposed to be.) Beowulf's subsequent betrayal of all he supposedly stands for brings grave consequences decades later…including that fire-breathing dragon I mentioned earlier.

The original epic poem Beowulf is generally regarded to be as boring as bone dust, but one thing you can say about this adaptation, from the script to the sword-point-in-your-eye 3-D visuals: boring it ain't. But while this is supposed to represent some sort of staggering technical achievement, it's frequently stiff and stilted looking. And the possibilities inherent in the new technology no doubt contribute to the action sequences going so far over the top as to be risible, rather than thrilling. Beowulf's self-sacrificing actions in the battle with the dragon at the end brought to mind the Black Knight's heroics in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which I'm sure wasn't the point. Still, the picture is unlike anything you've seen before. And very much like, for better or worse, what you're going to be seeing in megaplexes from now on.

— Glenn Kenny