Zemeckis’ Over Animated Take On A High School Beowulf(Angelina Jolie/Six Pack Edition)

Are movies based on novels supposed to create visual depictions of novels or intrigue movie watchers and bring big Hollywood producers big bucks? Robert Zemeckis does an alright job of following the story plot and creating an appealing movie to viewers in Beowulf. The director Robert Zemeckis takes an interesting turn on the epic poem and turns up the age rating a little bit. He adds nude scenes with Angelina Jolie and even the epic hero, Beowulf.

Visually, the 2-D pictures are excellent for an animated movie. Human details looks accurate and the most minor details are captured. However, the ways the characters are seems like the ways I would find in an Xbox video game like Call of Duty. Robert Zemeckis portrays Grendel as a disgusting, slimy child. Grendel’s appearance would surely disrupt any child or teenager watching the movie. His exposed skin and bony structure show to be creepy and frightening. The green slime coming out Grendel’s mouth from eating humans and his brain being cut made me lose my appetite for food in an instant. In the final scene when Beowulf is hanging onto the dragon, he cuts off his arm. While the arm is not shown as cut off, the music effect associated with the cutting and Beowulf’s reach for the dragon’s heart had me in an extremely uncomfortable state. Also, the nudity was completely unnecessary. Beowulf occurred during the middle of the seventeenth century of the first millennium in Scandinavia north Europe, furs and heavy wools would be expected most of the time.

Sidestepping from the graphics, Robert Zemeckis did a valiant effort trying to copy the exact poem, but adding his own twist created slight disappointment.  Zemeckis followed the whole plot of the epic poem by including Beowulf’s adventure in Geatland and Beowulf’s victorious feats. An additional great scene added by Robert Zemeckis was the scene when Beowulf lets the Frisian warrior live. Beowulf says, “You think are the first to try to kill me or the hundredth, well let me tell you something Frisian, the gods will not allow you to kill me by your feeble blades.” In the monumental scene Beowulf is seen as more of a hero and someone who can be untouched. On the other hand, however, the addition of information about Grendel’s mother sidetracks from the epic poem and shows Beowulf to be lesser of a hero. The film shows Beowulf tempted by the seduction of the beautiful mother of Grendel. In the poem Beowulf kills Grendel’s mother instead of being seduced by her. The dragon is not the result of an affair and Beowulf became the king only after the new king after Hrothgar died. In addition, Beowulf is portrayed as a buff old man in the film. As a reader, I pictured Beowulf to be an energetic, bellicose warrior, but the whole grandpa picture does not really show Beowulf as a hero. For people who have not read Beowulf, the “300” and Shrek graphics of the film create a sight that people would love to see with 3-D glasses.

Manohla Dargis’ article in the New York Times and Roger Ebert’s review on Rogertebert.com are agreeable, but disagreeable with at the same time. I pretty much agree with Dargis’ saying that Beowulf is not “your average high school teacher’s Old English epic poem”(Dargis). The scene of Beowulf in the mead hall had a funny resemble to Bart Simpson’s nude scene cover up on the skateboard.  Roger Ebert sees the multitude of obstacles thrown at the audience as not bad for a one dimensional story while Manohla Dargis sees the objects as “not intrinsically intriguing.” The two critics, however, both agree on the point that Beowulf is not the average PG-13 film. Manohla suggests the “gory violence” and Roger talks about the nudity of Angelina Jolie. Also, they view the film as comical because of the random heroic moments and the random emergence of an Angelina Jolie from the water.

To be honest, despite the deviations from the actual epic poem and the graphic scenes I would recommend the movie to everyone. My wide eyes in awe of the effects help compensate for the random addition of random story plots. Surprisingly the difference between the movie version and the actual epic poem caused me to laugh a lot. The violent content slightly resembled the movie 300, which does not create a good appetite for the film. If you choose to go I do not recommend eating snacks during the film because there is plenty of bashed heads, people being eaten alive, and blood splattering. Zemeckis does an excellent job of keeping viewers on their feet all the way from the beginning to the end. Beowulf’s final scene left me wanting more, I would be glad to see a sequel to the film. Animations prove interesting, but there is seriously no way to watch the movie unless it is with 3-D glasses. The 3-D version can distract viewers from the faulty plots of the film and keep readers interested. I must agree with film critic Joshua Starnes that ‘Beowulf’ is a well conceived and technically excellent rendition of the ancient legend, but it doesn't follow its ideas through all the way...it’s not particularly bad, but it is a little underwhelming”(Starnes).