HD DVD Review: Beowulf (Director’s Cut)

Robert Zemeckis returns to the computer wizardry and performance-capture technology that he unleashed with ‘The Polar Express’ to tell a decidedly more mature story with a rousing, violent rendition of the Old English epic poem ‘Beowulf’.

Zemeckis was always intrigued by and on the forefront of technology since ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit?’, ‘Death Becomes Her’ and ‘Forrest Gump’ where he humorously inserted a Gump’d Tom Hanks into historic footage and with 2004’s ‘The Polar Express’, he took motion-capture technology to the next level.

Not merely content with a supporting character or even a main character being captured a la Jackson’s efforts with Gollum and King Kong, Zemeckis designed a whole film around it. While commercially successful, ‘The Polar Express’ suffered from a mostly soulless script and CGI that wasn’t quite there yet. A dead-eyed look lent the young protagonists a particularly creepy vibe that brought ‘Night of the Living Dead’ to mind more than the ‘Night Before Christmas’. In the years since, technology has improved enough to rectify most of the problems that plagued his previous effort and ‘Beowulf’ features CGI-created characters such as Anthony Hopkins’ ageing King Hrothgar and John Malkovich’s adviser that are almost perfect facsimiles of their real-world thespian counterparts. Not perfect by any means, notably the long shots where CGI work was noticeably less spent, this still presents a jaw-dropping animation feat where it’s fairly obvious now that technology is not constricting anybody’s imaginations but only the time and money allowed to come through with these ideas. Another notable step in photorealistic CGI that I’m guessing will peak with James Cameron’s much bally-hooed return with 2009’s sci-fi, 3D extravaganza ‘Avatar’. Of course, without a script, all the most expensive, impressive CGI animation in the world means jack squat – a telling statement that separates ‘The Polar Express’ from ‘Beowulf’ where fantasy novelist Neil Gaiman and co-scribe Roger Avary (‘Pulp Fiction’) teamed up to take some needed liberties with the once tedious junior high literature lesson. That being said, the original poem - steeped in Scandinavian legend – is full of the bravura, over-the-top action set-pieces that Hollywood loves especially in the light of ‘300’, another gory, revisionist, technical marvel. It’s surprising a big-budget take hasn’t been attempted before.

‘Beowulf’ opens amongst your standard mead hall hijinks. Wine (mead rather), women and song are the night’s activities and the drunken revelry increases upon the entrance of the jolly, elderly King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) and his younger, beautiful wife Wealthow (Robin Wright Penn) who seems tired of Hrothgar’s slurring antics. But the party stops when all the merrymaking attracts the attention of Grendel (Crispin Glover – perfect voice casting), a hideous 10-foot demon of a monster whose sensitive hearing drives him into a blood-thirsty rage. Busting into the mead hall and wreaking brutal havoc (violence that would approach NC-17 if live-action and in another case of ‘Who can figure out the MPAA?’ most of this violence was in the theatrical PG-13 cut), Grendel dismembers, claws and drinks the blood of a very unfortunate few but when confronted by the King, Grendel lets out a scream of anguish and heads back towards his cavernous lair in the mountains. Enter our boastful monster-slayer and all-around hero Beowulf (Ray Winstone – who, if you’re familiar with the rotund British character actor, can probably guess that the animators did not base Beowulf’s visual look on) and his fellow team of Geatsmen, who arrive on Danish shores with the intent of stopping Grendel’s reign of terror. The King reopens the mead hall and gives Beowulf a proper reception with the dual purpose of celebration and attracting the monster. In one of the film’s most action-packed sequences, Beowulf strips down naked to meet the equally un-armored Grendel in a clash of the titans. A well-choreographed, bloody showdown that uses strategic cover-up methods a la Austin Powers to thankfully keep ‘Beowulf’s’ sword and jewels off-screen. Grendel, now pitiful, stumbles back to his lair where his vengeful mother howls in agony at her hideous son’s death – a real pathos is generated here with Crispin Glover’s sad mutterings. When Beowulf soon learns of the existence of Grendel’s mother, he sets out to their lair to destroy her. But his human weaknesses prove no match for the demon’s seductive entrance – Angelina Jolie slinking out of a dark pool of water nude and gold-smeared on stiletto heels grown out of her own. Some choice words and blatantly phallic imagery reveal that Beowulf will provide her another son and he will become the next king.

When Beowulf returns boasting of his murder of Grendel’s mother, King Hrothgar knows better but cares little. His curse has been lifted and he wastes no time in handing over the kingdom to Beowulf along with his Queen Wealthow. The film shoots ahead decades later where our hero King, once boastful, has become a tired, tragic version of himself but is forced to deal with one last conflict – this time of his own creation. An articulate take on the poem, Gaiman and Avary’s script even goes to great lengths to improve the depth of the story (despite stuffy purist objections) with Beowulf’s own fate-sealing deal with the devil. Some modernized humor injects a nice breather and the script wisely jettisons most of the poem’s religious underpinnings. A bit more human interplay may not have hurt but Zemeckis clearly preferred CGI exhibition over long scenes of dreary dialogue. Why play in the sandbox if you’re only going to talk? The voice cast is all spot on with Ray Winstone providing a great, gravel-voiced thunder of BS as Beowulf, Wright Penn as the quiet Queen scorned by all men who enter her life, John Malkovich as the slimy adviser who doesn’t trust Beowulf at first and Brendan Gleeson as Beowulf’s loyal sidekick, Wiglaf. Well, with the recent news of HD-DVDs demise, this Paramount title could very well be one of the last big titles for the format. Although formal plans haven’t been announced and I’ll assume Paramount will continue with their plans to release already announced HD-DVDs like ‘Bee Movie’ and ‘Into the Wild’, I can say safely say that ‘Beowulf’ along with ‘Bee Movie’ will be two of the last new-release eye-candy exclusive titles for HD-DVD (knowing they will appear on Blu-Ray at some point). Well, it’s a great way to go out with Paramount offering up an impeccable MPG4/AVC digital transfer of the 2.35:1 framed picture. Detail, colors and clarity is as you would expect for a high-def rendition of a technical marvel – A rather sordid quote comes to mind from ‘Face/Off - ‘I’ll hate to see you go HD-DVD, but I’ll love to watch you leave’.

Eschewing TrueHD, Paramount offers up a pounding Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 track which gave my sound system quite a work out despite not being lossless. A 2-disc special edition with all special features in HD, the first disc gives us ‘Beowulf in the Volume’, a picture-in-picture extra that offers up behind-the-scenes info, storyboards, and capture of the actors as they’re performing – some cool stuff. There are also some web-enabled features that include exclusive featurettes. Disc Two starts off with a 25-minute doc, ‘A Hero’s Journey: The Making of Beowulf’’ that includes its own optional trivia track. ‘The Journey Continues’ clocks in at 20 minutes and includes a number of short featurettes that look into all aspects of production along with a handful of other featurettes that are listed separately. A ten-minute ‘A Conversation with Robert Zemeckis’ has the director at a Q&A with USC students, 13 minutes of Deleted Scenes and the theatrical trailer. To sum up, I found ‘Beowulf’ to be consistently enjoyable with near flawless CGI, a refreshingly mature story to tell with that CGI and spot-on voice casting that includes unconventional favorites such as Crispin Glover and Ray Winstone along with conventional pros like Hopkins. There’s not much human engagement to be sure but with this much action, who needs it? An impeccable high-def transfer is just the icing on the cake.