the gist: it's happy hour in king anthony hopkins' mead hall, which means booze, babes and belting out some songs sans videoke (and this was centuries ago. nothing ever changes eh?) enter grotesque gatecrasher grendel, who only wants some peace and gives everyone a piece of his pissed-off mind by tearing them to pieces. with everyone scared shitless, a hero is called for and through the stormy seas, beowulf rises to challenge. thus begins beowulf's battle against grendel, angelina jolie's nakedness and living up to his legendary name. plus a golden dragon. will beowulf be the last cgi standing?
the reaction: gaddaym! imax 3d is a-fuckin-mazing. say ta-ta to those red and blue 3d glasses of yore. this is no doubt the future of movie watching. and what better way to immerse oneself in this extraordinary experience than on the breakthrough motion-capture film beowulf. when i put the glasses on and the credits rolled, i couldn't help not to be such an idiot and tried to reach for and touch the 3d letters. it got me like that. every time something suddenly pops up out of the screen, my lovely companion would jump off her seat. and it's not even a horror film. if there is a 3d horror film being made out there, then im pitiching a tent in line. the scene of grendel's initial attack was utterly astonishing. i'm pretty sure it wouldn't have the same impact in 2d. i loved the three-dimensional blood gore and violence but the quick p.o.v. shot where robin wright penn's queen character is watching the carnage through a hole on the table she's hiding behind struck me the most in that sequence because it actually looks like you're looking through a hole in real life. darn, i crave for more of imax 3d.
the other thing that makes beowulf great is the way the poem was translated on screen. neil gaiman and roger avary of course had to change a few things up a bit and the final output was a well told story of a man who is known as a hero, proves he's a hero, but still is just a man. at one point, beowulf tells his wife queen (and im paraphrasing here) to remember him not as a hero but as a man, flawed and something else. great voice acting by ray winstone, he's not as loud as leonidas in 300 as most think due to the trailers, and upon checking the dude's pics, great decision to not make beowulf look exactly like him at all. one more kudo to crispin glover's portrayal of grendel. that old english gibberish of him talking to angelina jolie was one of the best here. angelina's though sounded fake. and speaking of that pouty-lipped temptress...
yes, fellow pervs, angelina jolie is fully nude in this film. yes, it's cgi and yes there's some gold liquid covering her privates, but a huge yes, she is very naked. and sporting a lara croft-like hairdo by the way. to me, her cgi counterpart was the most photo-realistic of all the characters. it seemed like it was really angelina jolie emerging from the water to display her cgi bareness. this was the big payoff after seeing anthony hopkins's butt and beowulf's everything except his weiner which, during his armorless, weaponless mano a mano with grendel, was amusingly covered, reminiscent of austin powers. so, yeah, apart from the violence, this movie surely aint for the young ones. which is good since there's gazillions of kid-friendly cgi movie out there. it's about time we adults get to enjoy a cgi movie for ourselves and not have any tears jerked out.
it was hard not to think of the videogame god of war throughout the movie. there were shots that felt like lifted directly from the game and i was clawing the empty air, pretending to hold an invisible ps2 controller. there were two particular sequences where i observed this prominently: when john malkovich (underused. could have been another actor, wouldn't matter) tries to debunk beowulf's hero fame by questioning the swimming contest he lost, beowulf tells him why and we get a flashback of him fighting sea monster just as he was about to win. he slices one in half and stabs another one in the eye, gives us a customary warrior shout on top of the monster's head and jumps back into the water and back into the race. very gamely. the other one is the whole golden dragon action sequence. i think i've spoiled enough so i'll leave this one undescribed for your full entertainment.
this 3d-fied version of the classic tale we all ate up in high school is a definite must-experience for all film buffs (well, except for the kiddies). sure, you could point out flaws from your point of view, but overall, beowulf will blow you away. the guys behind this have set the bar so high, everybody else will surely be pulling out all the stops to outdo them. which only spells even greater flicks headed our way. consider this reviewer bitten bigly by beowulf.
the good: the 3d!!! well, story and cg were good but fuck, man, the 3d is wicked!
the bad: mouths still need a lot of work. also, angelina jolie's boobies didn't bounce.
tha ugly: grendel.
the verdict: 9 golden horns.
jaimax.
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