Viewed: Beowulf

Well, that certainly was a movie with Beowulf in it.

Mr. Bile has already commented on it, but I think he's viewing the film through 3-D colored glasses. I'm all for taking liberties with the source material--Grendel really impressed me in high school--and it's great that we finally got to see Angelina Jolie in her true form. Also, I think it's pretty cool that the dragon really fights like a dragon, and not like a gang of 50 disposable bad guys in an old-school Jackie Chan movie who attack him one at a time.

But, man, those boss battles were long. And the cut-scenes in-between? Can we all just agree that Neil Gaiman should never be allowed near movies? I've read Smoke and Mirrors. That man holds a serious grudge.

The plot of the original, as I understand it:

1. There's a grendel.
2. A beowulf rips off its arm.
3. A beowulf kills its mom.
4. Then there's a dragon.

Here's what, when pressed by my wife who was never forced to read Beowulf in high school, I got out of the movie:

1. Grendel's mother is a symbol not necessarily of temptation (though base heterosexual urges and the desire to produce progeny is the ultimate weakness of all men who like to be naked in front of other men), but of the mistakes fathers commit as seen through the eyes of their own sons.
2. Alternatively, the film is really about women discovering what they really want in a man. Grendel's mother and Hrothgar's wife slowly upgrade their relationships throughout the movie, as they learn that the longer a man hesitates to have sex with you, the more noble he is, and the more kick-ass your kids might be.
   
3. Something about Christianity. There's a lot of crosses on evil people and dead people on crosses and burning crosses that fall on dead people. Apparently, Robert Zemeckis is an alternate universe Tim Burton with a cross fetish.

Yes, it certainly was a movie I paid money to see. And, occasionally, stuff pretended to fly out of the screen at me. More often them not, I had to redirect my eyes so I wasn't seeing two things at once.

That's Beowulf, I guess.

Viewed: No Country For Old Men and Beowulf

Sometimes, ignorance is a good thing. For example, I enjoyed No Country For Old Men a lot more than Narraptor did. I haven't read the novel yet, and was blissfully unaware of any health problems among the audience. About the only thing troubling me was the fact that the concession stand was selling obviously bootlegged DVDs, right next to the drink machine.

No Country For Old Men itself is a combination of all things Cohen. The film primarily harkens back to the bleakness of the Cohen's earlier films. Despite this, there are random moments of levity that burst in, transport the story back to the happy wordplay obsessed films the Cohens have been making as of late. A generous viewer can assume that the latter bits help to camouflage the despair that would otherwise be grinding down in every scene. However, an alternate explanation is that the directors just felt like parachuting in a character or two from Oh Brother Where Art Thou, no matter what got broken in the proccess.

This isn't meant to imply that you'll just get what you expect out of the film, or that its quality cannot be objectively judged so you should just give up. But the fact remains that while I enjoyed the film, I'm now concerned that I'll like it a lot less once I read the book.

Lately, I've been a sucker for films that jarringly switch tonal gears with no rhyme or reason. As a further example of this, I left Beowulf feeling strangely satisfied.

If you've seen the previews for Beowulf, you've probably wondered when exactly our hero says "I-Am-Beowulf!" in that strangely halting cadence, and if he kicks a Persian down a well immediately afterwards. I'll inform you that whenever Beowulf or the all-star Beowulf singers announce his name, you must take a drink. Make sure you have a designated driver.

During the inexplicably rocking opening to the film, the credits alone inform the viewer that if they didn't spring for the 3-D version, they wasted their money. During the full IMAX experience, the left projector is displays Neil Gaiman's Beowulf, while the right projector shows Robert Zemicks' Beowulf. When wearing polarized goggles, the two films combine to create a down-to-earth story of xtreme heroes, and the corrupting effects being so awesome has on them.

Its a neat trick. Not many films can get away with feeling respectful to centuries-old source material, even during a ten minute fight scene where numerous foreground objects conspire to hide Beowulf's Beowang from the viewer, while a rotting Crispin Glover Muppet indulges in some wire-fu.

The CGI characters continue the theme of schizophrenia. Many of the male characters are very well done, with only their strange eyes letting you know that they hail from the Uncanny Valley. The women are immigrants from Shrektopia, and exist free of pores, body language, and a human soul. Beowulf himself stands somewhere in between these two extremes. Sometimes he's a real little boy, sometimes he's a Lord Of the Rings NoodleElf, and every once in a while he becomes an animatronic model.

All of this should end up being a mess, but all of the contradictions somehow cancel each other out, leaving behind an enjoyable film. Still, I already know that its the kind of movie that I'll either lover or hate a month from now, and there's no telling which it will be.