Evan Butts
Mr. O’Brien
E-Block Brit Lit
10/7/13
What’s
more action-packed than a giant evil monster, his drop dead gorgeous and
seductive mother, a fire-breathing dragon, and a human warrior capable of
ripping off one of your limbs from your body? Yea, not that much. In Robert Zemeckis’ directed film Beowulf, much has been added to the
ancient Anglo-Saxon poem to spice it up a bit.
And when I say much has been added to the ancient Anglo-Saxon poem to
spice it up a bit, I am mostly referring to the beautiful(and some-what naked)
Angelina Jolie. Besides the amazing Ms.
Jolie, however, Zemeckis and screenplay writers Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary
added a few other crucial ingredients such as numerous plot twists, special
graphics, and 3D watching capability to revamp the piece of work and attract
more viewers.
These
changes, although necessary and beneficial for gaining more viewers and making
the movie more interesting, do take away certain traits from characters that
were in the original poem. For example
in the poem, Beowulf is seen as the most heroic man in all of the lands and one
who does the right things. But in the
movie, there are certain times where Beowulf does some questionable things
behind a lot of people’s back that make us question if he truly is a hero or
not. The poem justifies Beowulf as a
hero with no faults where as the later movie wanders from that characteristic
in hopes of making the movie more appealing, which it successfully
accomplishes. As a person who has read
the book and watched the movie, one might feel bad about this because the movie
bashes Beowulf in hopes of being successfully and makes him seem like a person
with faults to those who haven’t read the epic poem.(which I highly recommend
they should!)
Besides
destroying the poem Beowulf’s perfect hero image, the movie translates the poem
quiet well and is actually good. No,
Beowulf doesn’t become king of the Danes and he doesn’t marry Wealththeow in
the poem, but the movie has to make some changes to keep those who have read
the poem on their toes and to add more life to the film narrative. The epic fight scenes with the horrific
Grendel and the ferocious dragon give this film the action it needs for the
viewers. Nobody that I know of wants to
go to a movie that has no type violence and is about ancient Anglo-Saxon
tribes. This will absolutely come off as
weird, but the splitting in half, biting apart, and throwing of human corpses
all sadly give the movie-goers some sort of entertainment and keep them engaged
with the movie. Let’s face it. Not everyday will you get the chance to see
humans being tossed like rag dolls from one side of a mead hall to another…not
in real life, not in books, and for the most part not even in movies.
And
to top off all these terrible fight scenes, the graphics that come along with
them are out of this world. Never before has a long strand of drool looked so,
but Beowulf found a way to pull it off.
The animation used in this movie really worked well in the sense that
the animated humans looked somewhat human-like and that it allowed for the
writers to create terrifying creatures that were needed for the movie. The technology and special effects involved
with the movie not only enhanced the movie’s quality and gave more life to it,
but it was needed in order for the film to work.
Although
Beowulf is displayed as not as heroic and faulty in this film, I cannot deny
the fact that overall it was a solid movie.
I loved every second of every intense moment or battle scene and the
special effects that came with it were the icing on the cake. The one thing that keeps tripping me up
though is the fact that Beowulf isn’t as perfect in the movie as he is in the
poem. Come on now, everybody who knows
the real(poem) Beowulf knows that he doesn’t get nightmares or have side
affairs with a pretty mistress. Beowulf
doesn’t do that stuff...that’s just weak.
Overall, I enjoyed the movie and would recommend it to those who are
deemed appropriate, sorry little kids, and to those who enjoy a quality high
action packed old Anglo-Saxon era movie.
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