Based on what I'd heard, I thought I had lowered my expectations accordingly to watch Beowulf. What I really should have done was completely jettison all expectations and jab myself in the eye with a fork.
I think the photorealistic animation used in the movie kind of defeats the whole purpose of animation. Give me something like the people in The Incredibles any day. They're recognizably human, but the animation medium is so flexible that it's really rather silly not to take advantage of i. The cool factor wore off for me very quickly. The monsters were well done, but the people started to look plastic after a few minutes. And what's with the animated butt-cheek nudity? Just say no!
It was the way they butchered the story that really raised my ire, though. Grendel as the son of Hrothgar? The dragon as the son of Beowulf? Monsters are begotten by heroes, now, are they? And it takes an awful lot of brass to have the weak (at least to temptation), lustful, prideful liar that is the Beowulf of the film say, "The time of heroes is dead: the Christ-God has killed it, leaving nothing but weeping martyrs and fear and shame." Alas, but no. The time of heroes is dead because we killed it, preferring our heroes to be like the Greeks preferred their gods – as mirror images of ourselves. A host of characters that would include Gawain, Parzival, Britomart, Artegall, the Redcross Knight, and even modern characters like Aragorn and Dr. Ransom, would put lie to the assertion that Christ killed heroes and instead say that Christ has redeemed heroes.
If you haven't seen the movie, skip it and read the book. At a hundred pages it'd probably take about the same amount of time, and would be infinitely more valuable.
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