Beowulf roars onto Blu-ray from Paramount Home Entertainment and it has never looked better. The film still has all the problems that it had on DVD, but the picture is just so amazing you might be willing to cut it a little slack.
Beowulf is the ultimate hero who arrives at King Hrothgar’s cursed kingdom to help the elderly king with his trouble. It seems a demon/monster named Grendel (who looks like an inbred giant with a drooling problem) is upset with the sounds coming from Hrothgar’s drinking hall.
Beowulf isn’t scared of the stories of Grendel and assures the king that he will kill it in a single night. When questioned about his bravado, Beowulf tells the story of how he killed several sea monsters while trying to win a swimming race.
When the time for battle arrives, Beowulf strips naked so he can take on Grendel in hand to hand combat without any advantages. The battle happens, and Beowulf shows he isn’t all talk. The hero fights Grendel without a single moment of hesitation and manages to rip off Grendel’s arm. As an reward, Beowulf is given a golden horn and everyone in the kingdom parties – medieval style.
Unfortunately, Beowulf didn’t know about Grendel’s momma, and finds out there is another monster for him to slay. Beowulf goes into her lair with every intention of killing her, but is slowly seduced by her. Since Grendel’s mother happens to look like Angelina Jolie (who voiced the character), it is easy to forgive our hero for a moment of weakness.
Beowulf returns with an even bigger story of how he killed the momma and inherits the kingdom from Hrothgar – who can no longer live with his curse.
The film then jumps to an elderly Beowulf who finds himself starting to suffer from the same weight that killed Hrothgar. Things go from bad to worse, when a new monster (Beowulf’s son) shows up in the form of a dragon to destroy his father’s kingdom.
Once again, it falls to Beowulf to kill the monster, and the film finishes with a massive fight between Beowulf and the dragon. The final moments are by far the best of the movie, and make the slower (and somewhat dumber) moments worth watching.
Director Robert Zemeckis puts together an incredible voice cast to bring his CGI characters to life for a screen version of the Beowulf tale that tries to match the epic qualities of the poem – in all its bloody glory. The film features a screenplay by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary.
On some levels (such as the incredible dragon fight at the end), Beowulf succeeds. Sadly, on other levels (such as some of the animation and a goofy looking Grendel) it fails miserably.
The film features voice work from Academy Award winner Anthony Hopkins as the cursed King Hrothgar, John Malkovich, Robin Wright Penn, Brendan Gleeson, Crispin Glover, Alison Lohman and Jolie.
The cast is great, but it is the voice work of Ray Winstone (The Departed, Sexy Beast) that makes the film worth watching. His Beowulf is a boaster, but can back it up. He is immediately charming and just seems like the kind of guy that you want in your corner when the bad times come.
Winstone brings all these qualities to life with his booming voice – which can match the intensity of Gerard Butler’s King Leonidas in 300. Now if we could only figure out how to get these two characters in a film together.
Jolie is equally excellent as the seductive Grendel’s mother. Her character comes across as caring about the poor Grendel, but also pure evil in her seduction of a hero. You get the feeling she is feeding off of how she is stripping our hero of everything that makes him great and showing the boaster that he is just a man after all.
While the actors do great jobs in their voice work, it is the CGI animation with its use of motion-capture technology that makes the film jaw-dropping, and on Blu-ray it looks even better. It is not enough that the characters look so life-like; Blu-ray has to let you have the ability to literally count the beard hairs on Beowulf’s face. The film’s gore is in its high definition glory and makes it that much easier to get into the action.
Unfortunately, the crystal clear picture also hurts the film. Like Robert Zemeckis’ The Polar Express, the characters in Beowulf still come across clunky at times (especially Grendel) and the eyes just don’t quite work yet.
The film also has some problems with the middle act taking some of the steam out of the sails and dragging the plot to a crawling pace. The whole nude Beowulf/Grendel fight also seems like it belongs in an Austin Powers’ film with various objects being placed in front of Beowulf’s naughty parts to protect our eyes. It doesn’t kill the fight scene, but I found myself laughing and being distracted. All that was missing was Beowulf shouting “Yeah Baby Yeah!” Still, the dragon fight makes up for the problems and the film leaves you wanting to watch it again.
Most of the special features on the Blu-ray disc were released on the HD DVD version of the film including A Hero's Journey: The Making of Beowulf; Beast of Burden - Designing the creatures of Beowulf; Creating the Ultimate Beowulf; The art of Beowulf; A Conversation with Robert Zemeckis; and Deleted Scenes.
While I hated parts of Beowulf, the film kept me entertained thanks mostly to Winstone and the killer animation. I also love that Zemeckis didn’t shy away from the violence in the film, and would recommend the Blu-ray to anyone who wasn’t completely sold on Beowulf when it was released on DVD. Beowulf and Blu-ray are a natural match, and the film truly delivers on this format.
Beowulf [Blu-ray] is now available at Amazon . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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