BY: JERRY P

Following the success of Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter series, it should be no surprise to see that Robert Zemeckis has come up with a spin-off of the oldest epic poem in English, Beowulf. The film stars Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Crispin Glover, and Angelina Jolie.

Read Jerry P's full review (including spoilers) in the Bookmans forum.

The 8th century fantasy is just the ticket for the director who made Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Forrest Gump, and The Polar Express, three movies noteworthy for their experimental techniques. Zemeckis pushes the envelope once again. Not only is this a 3D version of the tale, but the film also employs the technique known as “photorealistic animation” (also used in The Polar Express), which has rich expressive possibilities but severe limitations as well. I’ll explain in a moment.

But first let’s look at the story. I haven’t read Beowulf since I was in high school, nor have I read the new translation by award-winning Irish poet Seamus Heaney, which according to one of my confidants - a high school English teacher - is quite good and adds a lot to the liveliness of the myth. Most of you will recognize the voices and the appearances of the main characters. Anthony Hopkins is King Hrothgar of Denmark and his Mead Hall (where they drink, eat, and make merry) is constantly under attack by an ugly giant named Grendel (Crispin Glover). So Hrothgar puts out a message to nearby lands that he is looking for a great warrior to rid him of this killing beast. One prize that he offers is his beautiful young queen (Robin Wright Penn). Beowulf (Roy Winstone) shows up with his loyal band of warriors, coming from a land we now call Sweden. He is charged with defeating three monsters: Grendel, his demon-mother, and a fire-breathing dragon. In the epic poem he slays all three but, in the Zemeckis version, the dark mother succubus wins out in the end.

Grendel may be a fiendish monster but the way he is depicted in the movie seems satirical and over the top, more cartoonish than other figures, almost childish. He whines when he gets hurt and runs home to his mother, who can’t save him. His jaw is out of sync with the rest of his face, and his body looks like it was made of thousand pork sausages leaking a yellow sap, like the creature in Alien. You wonder how he could be as strong as he seems to be. Beowulf fights Grendel in the nude but we never see his privates as, most conveniently, things always get in the way to block the view. It is all very calculated, and how they handle the demon-mother is similar - naked but not too provocative. Beowulf, now clad in short pants (a girdle?), goes to her cave and we see the most talked about scene in the movie: the demon-mother, in the guise of a naked Angelina Jolie, emerging slowly from the dark waters of her secluded lagoon. It is a streamlined Jolie, with her sexuality obvious but toned down, as she has no nipples and there is much clever shading that de-emphasizes what needs to be only hinted at. It is a compromised appearance, existing somewhere between PG-13 and an R rating.

The characters have the look of painted dolls that belong in a wax museum, and that synthetic look hampers identification with the characters. Emotions bounce off that rubbery surface. It’s a real problem; at least it was for me. There’s no question about the pleasures of the visual spectacle, but that remote, impenetrable quality cut-off empathy with the characters. They become little more than pawns in a game - a video game.