phragmentation

First off, I’m not a fan of animation generally, and this trend of life-like animation I find a little tedious (although I’m more quickly driven to sleep by cartoon animation, so this is a step up)… the faces are so real, yet the bodies, especially the hands and feet, just give it away so easily. And they usually look so much like the real actors, what’s the point? Well, in Beowulf, the gore and violence seems to be the point, and there is plenty of that to justify the use CG instead of live actors. Probably a good thing, but in a 3D movie I wonder why they can’t substitute in CG for the bloody bits and use live actors to perform the rest of the story? The movie definitely had the feel of watching a video game, which does lend a subtle level to the plot. But I can’t help but think that the up-close effect of a *real* Angelina Jolie’s gold skin emerging from the water into my lap would have been oh-so-much-more intense… and Beowulf’s game of hide-my-private-parts behind carefully positioned props would have been that much more titillating. Sitting in the first row made it a little challenging to keep my vision in alignment (especially being tempted so often to look around things…), but there were a lot of entertaining effects heightened by the 3d + imax experience. Vast Nordic landscapes, viking ships and dark-age castles lend themselves well to a big screen in all dimensions. But then there were a lot of mediocre CG iterations… like the snow flakes that didn’t fall on anything. And the anachronistic renderings of things like pantylines under a skin tight dress. The story line was surprisingly well communicated for what is primarily an action movie. The persistent theme of man creating his own enemy told through a timeless story came through quite clearly. That is to say, I had no trouble staying awake through the 2 hour movie. (Plus I had lots of coffee and a full night’s sleep going for me as well.) B+
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