Beowulf

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Saw it last night with Sofia at the IMAX in 3D.

It was a pretty good movie and I'd give it a 3 to 3.5 out of 5.

My chief gripes with it were:

(1) the whole bit with Grendel was too long. It took about half the movie to get rid of him. I think the movie would have been tighter if they edited that part in half.

(2) I found the whole Grendel stuff a little to icky and gory and brutal. I think they could have left more to the imagination (personally, I think this could have had a PG rating instead of a 13+ rating had the violence and gore been toned down a bit).

(3) scenes were expressly shot for 3D impact. I prefer story over visuals.

(4) it was animated! Good grief, I thought it was live action, but it is done in some sort of hyper-realistic computer animation.

The last half of the movie was very powerful and helped to redeem the first half.

While the 3D was interesting for the first 10-15 minutes, you just get use to it and it loses its impact. It is a lot like the difference between black and white and colour films. The colour grabs you at first, but after a while it fades into the background and the story is what drives you. Just think of Arsenic and Old Lace with Cary Grant. Though black and white, it is a frenetic, fun fill and you don't notice the absence of colour.


Image nabbed from here.

Comments

x said…
i'm not sure when they'll show the film over this side of the world. i think it would be helpful for high school students here to just watch the film before reading the epic for english literature class... hehe. it was hard for me to read back in hs. honestly.
November 18, 2007 8:30 AM
dodong flores 도동 플로오리스 said…
I agree with aCey. The movie is a two-hour digestion of what is a few-days read in books. It's coming very soon here in Manila. I might watch it as well ;)
November 18, 2007 8:30 PM
Richard said…
acey: thanks for visiting again. I have no idea how faithful to the original text the movie is. Based on what I know of Norse mythology, it seemed pretty genuine.

I never read the story. The only Norse saga I have read was "Njal's Saga" - which I thought was a good read.

dodong: thank you for visiting. I think it is worth watching. Certainly, it seemed true to what I know of Norse mythology (yes, I know it is considered a great English poem, but the story is definitely Norse in flavour), but the movie was not as great as I thought it could have been.
November 18, 2007 9:37 PM
dodong flores 도동 플로오리스 said…
Hi, Richard. At least, it will entertain us :D
November 19, 2007 3:09 AM
Richard said…
dodong: I think that is the least we can hope for in a movie.
November 19, 2007 11:49 AM
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