The last time I read the ancient, Old English epic poem "Beowulf," about the last thing I pictured in my mind was a full frontal, 3-D nude view of Angelina Jolie. Now that I have your attention, let me explain. As most anyone who's had to do so can agree, trudging through the text was and still is quite a chore, and about the only thing likely to pass through one's head are thoughts of why they're reading it.
Of course, "back in the day" the long tale of a hero's battles against monsters was required in school. Yet, its thick prose made it a tough sit, and certainly leeched away its entertainment value, regardless of having been a popular bit of verbal storytelling long before it made its way onto the written page more than a thousand years ago.
For today's kids, the latest movie adaptation of the classic will serve as an eye popping Cliffs Notes version, certain to please the throngs who enjoyed the battle happy, chest thumping spectacle that was "300." This film, however, significantly ups the ante by appearing (where available via participating theaters) in the most vividly rendered 3-D you'll likely to have ever seen.
Where other films -- both of recent and the "glory days" going back to the 1950s -- have played around with the visual format to varying degrees of success, this one does it so well that the effect alone is worth seeing the movie on the big screen (with 3-D IMAX showings only enhancing that "must see" status).
No stranger to employing technology to help tell his tales, director Robert Zemeckis does the standard tricks -- such as various things thrust out toward the audience -- but also creates a multi-layered world that takes full advantage of the depth, both coming out of the screen and falling deep back within it.
All of which is a good thing since the rest of the film is something of a mixed bag, especially in terms of its tone that's all across the board. From monster battle moments that will remind viewers of similar scenes from the "Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter" flicks to oddly placed (and quite numerous) "hide the naughty bits," peek-a-boo moments straight out of the "Austin Powers" movies (where any number of foreground objects block views of a completely nude man's nether regions -- "Oh, behave!"), you never know what might next be on the way.
That's especially true regarding the aforementioned, similarly amazing, eye-opening views of Mrs. Brad Pitt who was only 11-years-old or so the last time I read the tale (which, I guess, is why she didn't come to mind back then). Of course, it's not really Ms. Jolie as Zemeckis once again deploys the motion capture technique he (and his presumably massive tech crew) first utilized back with "The Polar Express."
That's where real-life performers do their thing as cameras and computers capture their every move via various sensors all over their bodies. In turn, flesh and blood become zeroes and ones, thus creating far more realistic movement and behavior for the computer generated characters that populate the screen than if created from scratch.
I have no idea if the actress in question had any sort of digital enhancements done on her silicon doppelganger, but let's just say very little, if anything, is left to the imagination, particularly as the camera pans down her nude body (save for some thinly applied, watery substance) showing just about every detail possible (and shockingly so, particularly in a movie that somehow still managed to earn a PG-13 rating).
While I don't normally spend so much time focusing on a film's technical aspects (or lack of clothing), the reason here is that the rest of the film isn't anything terribly special or memorable. In fact, without the 3-D (and the nudity for those interested in that), the pic isn't particularly interesting.
Of course, some of that stems from the somewhat limited source material and its period-appropriate but still sexist mindset. And while Zemeckis and screenwriters Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary inject some new bits about fame, pride, ego and legend, this is really just a set of good to spectacular action sequences strung together with filler.
It certainly doesn't help that the characters aren't terribly engaging (nudity notwithstanding), and that the computer rendering of them varies in photorealistic quality. Like its costly predecessor, "Final Fantasy," it appears that certain character development teams worked at different times (and thus with different rendering software) or at least with differing budgets.
While nearly all of the characters look like those voicing them -- save for the title one that bears no resemblance to Ray "Sexy Beast" Winstone -- some appear more human than the others (and a few other effects also pale at times, including one that resembles old stop motion animation).
Yet, they all still come off as puppets to one degree or another, much of that stemming from their eyes that still fail to convey human life. Accordingly, that's likely to give viewers the impression they're watching computer game characters and not real beings, which turns out to be a huge stumbling block for caring about or being interested in them. Thus, it isn't that surprising that the most interesting is the monster Grendel (voiced by Crispin Glover), a tormented creature if there ever was one, while Jolie embodies (and then some) the near perfect mythological, siren-type character.
All of which means if you're not seeing this on the big screen and in 3-D, there's no reason to go out of your way to track it down. While fan-boys will be in real or falsely retained adolescent nirvana, most everyone else will probably shrug their shoulders (when not ducking the various things coming out of the screen toward them). "Beowulf" rates as a 5 out of 10, mainly because it's fun to watch from a purely visual standpoint.
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