Beowulf: Fully Animated
The
Epic Fail of an Epic Poem
Seamus
Heaney’s translation of the epic poem Beowulf
is a work of literary prestige with beautiful language that deserves honor and
respect. Robert Zemeckis’ translation of the poem turns the classic myth into a
smutty Hollywood byproduct, ruining the integrity of the main characters and
aiming to please our morbid society of blood-thirsty people with
attention-deficit disorders. Zemeckis’ movie is full of violence, as he seems
to be disturbingly fascinated with impalement, and so many unnecessary side
stories that the movie seems to be more of an Anglo-Saxon soap opera than an
epic poem. Most of the soap opera aspect comes from the loaded (and completely begat
from the minds of Zemeckis and his screenwriters, rather than the original text)
back-stories and personalities of each of the characters. In the movie we come
to understand that both our hero Beowulf and King Hrothgar are adulterers, an
insight which I myself never picked up from the poem, and apparently Grendel’s
mother, previously assumed to be a hag even more terrible than Grendel himself,
is a seductress dipped in gold paint. How creative. But it would be fruitless
to point out and correct every defiant deviation from the text that the movie
takes on, because there are too many that are so unnecessary that they are not
even worth mentioning.
Although
most other reviewers are not as rigid about a strict interpretation of the
text, most agree that the film Beowulf
is a boast not of victory or strength, like Beowulf’s own, but rather a boast
of state-of-the-art technology and 3-D movie magic. “This film version of
“Beowulf” doesn’t offer much beyond 3-D oohs and ahs” (“Beowulf (2007)”,
Manohla Dargis), as well as impalement after impalement. Using CGI
(Comupter-Generated Imagery) to construct creepily realistic but waxy-looking
people and disturbing mythical creatures, “they still neither have the spark of
true life nor that of an artist’s unfettered imagination” (Dargis). Plus
they’re just creepy, and somehow manage to make even attractive actors
unattractive. Although the CGI approach to this movie made the multiple mead
hall massacres more convenient, the animation made the movie more childish. Surely
some parents were lulled into a false sense of security and brought their young
ones to see the movie, unbeknownst to them what they were about to behold. Although
if you are a fan of the bloodiest and most disgusting scenes imaginable, are
impressed terrifyingly detailed monsters, or simply need to escape from reality
for 114 minutes, by all means see the movie.
The movie is so inappropriately
hilarious at times that it makes me question whether or not it is satirical.
Substituting beautiful poetry for sexual innuendos, “some
of the dialog sounds like Monty Python. No, most of the dialog does” (“Beowulf”
Rogert Ebert). I don’t think that Seamus Heaney would appreciate the poem’s
being so besmirched. Speaking of besmirched, let’s discuss our epic hero.
Beowulf: in the poem he is an admirable hero who rightly is awarded the Geatish
crown and rules the kingdom until killed by a dragon. In the movie however, he
is a dishonest philanderer who usurps the Danish throne after giving away their
most precious heirloom and somehow helping to conceive a dragon (quite a
biological mystery). I honestly cannot understand how such a blatant disregard
to the original story has been disregarded by other reviewers. Perhaps, like
Zemeckis, they didn’t read the poem either.
Honestly,
I don’t think that the disgusting aspects of the film are really Zemeckis’
fault. They are just what the moviegoers asked for. They wanted action, they
got action. They wanted sexy women, they sure got it. They surely must prefer
impalement to other kinds of deaths, because that’s how more than a necessary
amount of people died.
Your insight into the movie was very descriptive and I liked how you asserted your point in a precise and dominant manner. The whole review as a whole was full of detail and your opinions which made it great, and it was also short, sweet, and to the point.
ReplyDeleteI love the diction; "smutty" describes the film perfectly. I like your frankness, even though it somewhat brash. Personally, I would not include what Seamus Heaney would think because that is a pretty complex unknown. I love how you talk about how the film took so much away from the original story and substituted the basics of the story with over the top 3-D graphics. Because through out the review you kind of compensate for what they left out through your diction by using words such as unbeknowest. Your review creates a tone similar to the Epic.
ReplyDelete