I have to wonder what Beowulf scholars would make of screenwriters Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary revisionist take on the famous Old English epic poem. “Hold me in your memory not as a king or hero, but as a flawed, fallible man,” Beowulf (voiced by Ray Winstone) says at one point. It’s as good a statement as any as to Gaiman and Avary’s agenda to ostensibly add dramatic depth to the tale. From Beowulf’s introduction as a vain braggart to his self-inflicted Faustian tragedy, with one arguable exception there’s not much shine left to his heroism by the film’s end, if there’s any at all to begin with.
It would have been fascinating for the film to take apart the notion of heroism by asking whether it’s enough to be brave and strong, or if some other quality is required to be truly heroic. Another question to ask would be whether or not a redemptive act of bravery is enough by itself to invoke heroism, or if it is merely a way to make amends for past mistakes. But given the nature of Beowulf’s character in the film, I get the impression that the story’s climatic battle would have occurred regardless of whether it’s braggart Beowulf or remorseful Beowulf doing the battling. Throw in an inappropriately open end – one that fails to offer a character contrast to the pride that makes up Beowulf’s tragic flaw _– and the story ends up being as much a pessimistic undercutting of heroism’s possibility as an in-depth cautionary, Shakespearean morality tale on the corruptive effects of pride and temptation on heroism. In the final count, “Beowulf” is not an elegy on the death of heroism, but a perverse celebration born from exposing lofty heroism’s soft, realistic, and unseemly underbelly.
Room for Interpretation, But…
There’s room, of course, for some thematic wiggling depending on how charitable one wants to be; at least as much wiggle room as there is in figuring out whether the film’s distasteful blend of sex and violence merits an R or a PG-13 rating. If I’m not feeling particularly forgiving, it’s because the film is too flawed in other respects to wholeheartedly convince me of the need for charity. For one thing, the film has a split personality, loading up on comedy in the first half and hitting hard the tragedy in the second half. The intentional comedy, like a running Austin Powers-style genital-concealing sight gag – done far better in “Austin Powers” and effectively spoofed in “The Simpsons Movie” – comes across as misplaced and out-of-tone with the rest of the movie while raising questions as to why it’s necessary to indulge the old double-standard that puts women’s bodies front and center but keeps men hidden. (Pace Roger Ebert, the comedy is not, in my view, sustained enough in a way to make the film a satire of the poem, just an example of bad comic timing.) Into this mix comes the unintentional comedy proffered by the Grendel, presented as an un-scary, mentally retarded, rotting corpse-like grotesque (voiced by Crispin Glover, who seems condemned to barely intelligible Old English mutterings) and “Oh, please”-inducing dialogue like, “I am the ripper, the terror, the slasher. I am the teeth in the darkness! The talons in the night! My name is strength! And lust! And power! I AM BEOWULF!” Oh, please.
As for the animation: While I saw the film in its mere 2-D form, it is admittedly impressive. The aforementioned climatic battle between Beowulf and a demon dragon ranks right up there in terms of delivering heavily eye-candied thrills and chills. And the attention to detail is worthy of applause. Yet, given how real actors are used in a motion capture process that realistically animates near photo-realistic characters (who nonetheless still seem cartoony,) however much they resemble the voice actors portraying them, I can’t help but wonder, why bother? With a $150 million budget, why not simply make a live-action film? The beauty of animation is the freedom it offers from a need to be true to reality, to follow imagination and offer unique styles, designs and artwork. Frankly, the motion-capture process was implemented to better artistic effect Disney’s “Monster House.” For all its occasionally awe-inspiring imagery, “Beowulf” offers a spectacle as empty as its story.
Entertainment Value: * (out of two)
Technical Quality: * (out of two)
Beowulf. Written by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary. Directed by Roger Zemeckis. Starring the voice talents of Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich and Crispin Glover. 114 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for intense sequences of violence including disturbing images, some sexual material and nudity).
