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Beowulf: Hybrid Animation VFX
Beowulf is good cheesy fun. Bob Zemeckis and Sony Imageworks and the hundreds of folks who labored to make this movie have delivered a must-see event, especially in IMAX 3-D. But it's not nearly as good as it could have been, nor did it need to be so labor intensive. I would happily watch the blue-screen/live-action/300 version of this movie, which would have cost half as much. Or I would eagerly see the entirely animated version. Why not shoot live-action and animate the non-human creatures? This performance capture/imagemotion process remains clunky and stiff.
Here's the deal: the best stuff in Beowulf is the most stylized, the most liberated from the motion-capture process--Angelina Jolie's spike-heeled demon, the monster Grendel, the golden dragon and Beowulf himself. Beowulf is an idealized Adonis-version of Ray Winstone, and the most magnificently rendered human character ever put on-screen. But the other humans, from Robin Wright Penn to Anthony Hopkins, with their plastic eyes and murky teeth, are still strange and weird. They are stiff, robotic, less human than if they had been animated. The human eye is rigged to pick out anything wrong. The closer to reality you get, the easier it is to miss it.
As for the whole Academy debate about animation vs. visual effects, Zemeckis remains hung up on being taken seriously as a live-action director who works with actors and props etc. Well, as long as this movie is 100% rendered, the Academy considers it animation, even if the process used to make the movie is the same one that created Gollum or King Kong. Those characters are considered VFX. But the VFX committee will never budge on this.
The Beowulf myth is a deep and powerful one; it goes back to the old tales that J.R.R. Tolkein was inspired by when he wrote The Lord of the Rings. I highly recommend the Seamus Heaney translation, which doesn't take long to read. But Roger Avary and Neil Gaiman have gussied up the story, complicating it with sex and honor and guilt and all sorts of modern emotions that the original myth had nothing to do with. Finally, I prefer the old-fashioned action-adventure Beowulf & Grendel, starring 300's Gerard Butler.
Here's the Variety review.
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Amen to the Seamus Heaney rec. It makes what has always been a rather torturesome read in lesser translations feel modern and accessible.
I don't have the same objections you and Justin do to the film's appearance. The characters look and move quite convincingly, especially in closeup (as long as you forgive the fact that they never blink - consider how expert animators like Aardman use eye blinks to punctuate their jokes).
I just don't understand why Zemeckis is so hung up on trying to achieve photorealism. He's excited that he can move his virtual camera in ways no director can in the real world, but enslaves his visual aesthetic to grungy torchlit mead halls.
A major part of 300's appeal was the hyper-stylized world Snyder created for his characters. Zemeckis is operating with an eye to the future. No one else is trying to use this technology, so he has to do all the R&D himself.
Movies like Polar Express and Beowulf are steps along the journey. Because they are essentially beta projects, I don't think either film will age particularly well, but we have to look past the hiccups at this stage so we can get wherever it is he's going.
Posted by: Peter Debruge | November 12, 2007 at 10:42 AM
Where did you see the Movie in 3D imax? London? Anyway, i went to the premiere and the unprecedented technology and terrific adaptation to the poem provided me w an experience that felt like seeing Star Wars for the 1st time. Best movie experience i have had in years. Kudos.
Posted by: Tony | November 13, 2007 at 10:32 AM
The Beowulf named stories always sound interesting for me and I usally like most animation movies, but after reading this article, I just rearranged my list and save my time.
It's a good think I found your this article on Technorati. Thank's Tony..
J.C. Carvill
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