I haven't even seen the film yet. It is my understanding that I probably won't bother until it lands on a screen in front of me according to circumstances that have nothing to do with my will. But I happened across Neil Gaiman's blog the other day, and he is—understandably—excited as hell about the film. And then I saw Lindsey West's review of the film for The Stranger, and, well, it's an exercise in contrasts. Spoiler: Do not read the following excerpt of West's review if you actually look forward to seeing this film. I admit ... I'm not exactly tantalized.
I'll be honest: I saw the trailer for it, and said, "No." And then I saw Gaiman's name on it and said, "Well, that's a shame." I'm glad to hear some folks are enjoying it.
If you want to see this movie, you HAVE to watch it at the 3D Imax. All of the characters are digitized and have so many crazy 3D scenes. Otherwise if you watch the movie normally, it looks weird, lots of fast-paced blurriness and whatnot. I couldn't get through the regular version and actually fell asleep, but the 3D version is AMAZING. It's a typical hero/action story with not much of a plot, but is overloaded with tons of special effects and eye-candy. Without the 3D, I don't care much for it. - N
I heard Angelina Jolie plays Grendel's mother. I also heard on the radio waht was supposed to be a clip from the film, in which Beowulf says basically (I can't recall the exact words) "Me Beowulf. You have monster. Me kill monster. " If so, the film should be seen and enjoyed by all those entranced by special effects and monster truck rallies alike, who think "beowulf" is a funny name for a movie but what the hell it's got tits and fights in it, and who have absolutely no sense of the ridiculous.
You wouldn't know that's who it was by looking at the character Grendel. He/It's pretty intense looking, but picture a giant with major birth defects who was run thru a hay bailer & slapped back together with duct tape or somethin'... There's technicaly a face on 'im, but it sure don't look like nobody. heh... True... in all her digitized perfect-boobedness (Tastefully covered just a wee bit with some sort of shiny stuff which seems to be "transmogrified" water or some damn thing, as with her Beowulf-boning nether regions... ) I dunno if I have a sense of the ridiculous, or just plain am ridiculous, but the occasional chuckle the film elicited did help me stop wishing they had skipped all the 3-D nonsense of objects coming right at the screen for no more reason than they did during the "way back when" 3-D craze, and that they'd just filmed the actors rather than making the CGI "mannequins" of 'em... It was worth a fiver at a discount night, I guess - if only for the ending, where it seems nothing whatever has been resolved - in spite of a good deal of brutal killing, including a spiffy scene where Grendel bites a man's head off and munches away on it as he confronts the dead guy's comrades in arms - and the whole mess could start up all over again the next time some dumb-ass wanders up to a certain mountain cave... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! 300 was better - that crazy narration was absolutely hillarious.
So they did keep a little bit of the original story, anyway. The only downside is the poisoning of the well for a movie based on the epic. Maybe someone will shoot Gardner's "Grendel", and throw a bit of the epic in on the side.
