There are plenty of things to gasp at in Robert Zemeckis’ Beowulf, particularly if you’re fortunate enough to catch the 3D version. Swords fly, blood splatters and comely wenches wobble like never before in glorious motion capture animation. Following on from the director’s involvement in Monster House and The Polar Express, Beowulf suggests that Zemeckis has given up on human actors altogether. He is prepared, nonetheless, to harness their essence and record their voices for his own digitised ends.
As King Hrothgar, Anthony Hopkins has never been more, well, like Anthony Hopkins. The same is true of Angelina Jolie who purrs her lines with the ridiculously vampish east European inflection that enlivened Alexander (albeit with moments of pure comedy). Immediately you wonder why the filmmaker didn’t, you know, go and make a real film. Though Beowulf takes a leap with computer-generated images, the real Angelina Jolie would mew just as well in the flesh in front of a digitised background à la Sin City or 300. Here, she, like everyone else, looks creepy. The leaden-eyed quality is no better in Beowulf than it was in The Polar Express where every character resembled an animated corpse and the sight of deadened Santa Claus struck fear into the bravest of hearts.
The good news for 12 year-old boys everywhere is that, given the awesome technology at his fingertips, Mr. Zemeckis has chosen to enlarge Angelina’s breasts so that virtual Angelina might bounce along even though she looks like a zombie. Ah, so that’s his purpose. Other notable transformations include Ray Winstone’s Beowulf who is fashioned like a Nordic god even though he talks like a roadie for Chas and Dave.
Still, for all the flaws inherent in the technology, Beowulf has its moments. Loosely adapted from the 8th century Old English poem by Roger Avary and Neil Gaiman, it has a pleasing comic book feel and a wilfully puerile way with sexuality. The battle sequences between Beowulf and the monster Grendel are torrid, naked affairs with expert todger cover shots. The ladies smirk about ‘third legs’ and the like. It’s difficult to imagine such material lasting quite as long as the Anglo-Saxon original but as a disposable, adolescent entertainment, it’ll do just fine.