[Film]

Beowulf

Review by Joel Morris

I haven’t read the Epic of Beowulf since high school, and honestly I barely remember reading it at all but I do remember struggling to stay focused on the archaic poetry about the long dead king and his assorted tales of daring. I’m from a generation raised watching the epics. I grew up with Charleton Heston bringing down the Ten Commandments, and now Ray Winstone doing a much better job than Christopher Lambert did in another Beowulf.

It’s much easier to pay attention to ancient epic heros when they are motion captured computer-rendered badasses flying through the air killing dragons and stuff in 3D. Sure they left out about thirty years of history but apparently that’s going to be the stuff the video game is based on. English teachers rejoice!

It’s been awhile since I walked out of a movie and didn’t immediately start nitpicking it, but I honestly have nothing to complain about. It had action, romance, a giant beautifully rendered dragon, and an Angelina Jolie in nothing but computer generated golden liquid latex.

I was a bit leery about the whole 3D shtick since the last time I saw something outside of an IMAX it was in the Red-Blue “look its 3-D; the swords are commin right at yah!” crap that may have worked as a novelty back in the sixties. This 3D utilizing only marginally goofy looking 3D glasses (good thing it’s dark in theaters) creates a polarizing effect that focused on giving you a depth of field into the screen, making far objects actually seem further away. Yes there were the obligatory “It’s coming right at us” moments and while most of them weren’t anything spectacular there were a few surprises that were well-worth the price of admission.

Go treat yourself to Beowulf, in 3D if you can.

JM