Film Review

03 December 2008 04:50 BST

Beowulf

Directed by Robert Zemeckis, out November 15th in cinemas, starring Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, John Malkovich, Robin Wright Penn, Brendan Gleeson and Angelina Jolie, running time 115 minutes.

In a nutshell...

Man with beard kills monsters

What's it all about?

About 1,300 years after the great Anglo-Saxon poem appeared, Polar Express director Robert Zemeckis takes Beowulf out of the classroom and into cinemas with a motion capture-fuelled update.

For those people unfamiliar with the 3,000-plus line poem's plot or background – don't worry about it. Screenplay writers Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary have made most of it up themselves anyway.

Purists left aghast at the thought of another complete retelling of the heroic tale (see Christopher Lambert's 1999 science fiction effort) can rest easy though.

This modern version still features Grendel, said Grendel's mum and a dragon who doesn't take kindly to thieves, but also adds some bawdy humour, a cockney hero and an underlying current of unbearable guilt.

Who's in it?

Ray Winstone (Sexy Beast, King Arthur) stars as the eponymous Beowulf, who accordingly is apparently from Hackney and a dead-ringer for Sean Bean.

The accentual situation is made even more bizarre by Anthony Hopkins' remorseful King Hrothgar (he's Welsh), while his character's wife – Queen Wealthow – played by Robin Wright Penn and John Malkovich's court advisor Unferth get progressively more Scottish as they age.

Angelina Jolie plays Grendel's mother with a Nordic lilt (most of the time), with Brendan Gleeson rounding off the cast as Beowulf's (Irish) compatriot and best friend forever Wiglaf.

Oh, and Grendel himself is voiced and acted by Crispin Glover.

As an example...

"Beautiful." – Beowulf does his best Bernard Matthews impression when looking at either Hrothgar's golden dragon horn (not rude)/Queen Wealthow/and the golden dragon horn again.

"Are you the one they call Beowulf? Such a strong man you are. A man like you could own the greatest tale ever sung. Beowulf, stay with me. Give me a son and I shall make you the greatest king that ever lived. This I swear." – Grendel's mother makes some promises she doesn't expect to keep.

Likelihood of a trip to the Oscars

It's a sort-of-cartoon with some famous actors in it, so Beowulf is a certainty to be nominated for the Academy award for best animated feature.

What the others say

"Director Robert Zemeckis not only deploys 21st century movie technology at its finest to turn the heroic poem into a vibrant, nerve-tingling piece of pop culture, but his film actually makes sense of Beowulf. In Zemeckis' hands, it's an intriguing look at a hero as a flawed human being." – Hollywood Reporter.

"For all its visual sweep and propulsively violent action, this bloodthirsty rendition of the Old English epic can't overcome the disadvantage of being enacted by digital waxworks rather than flesh-and-blood Danes and demons." – Variety.

So is it any good?

First things first – Beowulf is a technological marvel; a triumph of advanced animation and motion capture techniques. The dead eye syndrome synonymous with the director's previous effort, Polar Express, is mercifully nowhere to be seen.

Instead the environs of the mead hall Heorot and its coarse inhabitants are presented on the screen in jaw-dropping realism, while the more fantastical inhabitants of seventh century Denmark are satisfyingly disgusting (Grendel – yuk).

And the screenplay from Stardust author Neil Gaiman and Pulp Fiction collaborator Roger Avary in many ways builds upon the centuries-old epic, seeking to explain away the chronological question marks that see a 50-year gap between Beowulf's scraps with the Grendels and the dragon.

Critics could justifiably say that these breaks in the text are what gives Beowulf the Anglo-Saxon poem its soul. JRR Tolkien, perhaps the text's biggest fan, said a similar thing.

But apparently modern audiences do not have the imagination to fill in the blanks themselves, so Gaiman and Avary have dreamed up some very saucy goings-on in Grendel's cave.

Of course this allows lots of geeks to get off on an almost photo-realistic, almost naked Angelina Jolie, but it might not be to everyone's tastes.

Other new additions sit just as uneasily. The lewd humour of Beowulf's fellow Geats when they arrive in Denmark is nothing compared to Hrothgar's slipping robe, with Beowulf himself getting in on the act by, inexplicably, stripping down to his birthday suit in full view of the queen prior to his arm-wrestling match with Grendel.

The buddy movie humour between Beowulf and Wiglaf is just as unnecessary, while the excessive and sometimes startling violence (Grendel really chows down on that guy's head) seems strange given the film's target audience and 12A UK certificate.

That is not to say the film is without highlights. The anticipation of Grendel's first appearance, Beowulf's emergence on the prow of a Norse longboat and the beginning (the middle and end really drag on) of the climatic dragon fight/flight are great and difficult not to automatically smile at.

But last things last - watching the film in all its pristine beauty, you can't escape the feeling that an old school stop motion-style film would have been so much scarier.

There is little dread in Zemeckis' Beowulf, and what is left is sucked dry by a videogenic Angelina Jolie and a lot of ill-advised horseplay.

So while Beowulf the poem may well still be going strong for another 1,300 years, Beowulf the film is unlikely to be remembered beyond this Christmas. DVD special edition release excepted.

6/10

Matthew Champion

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