Mystery cult (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} mysterycult) wrote,@ 2007-11-18 21:58:00 |
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Beowulf
I went to see Beowulf at the weekend. It's been a while since I read the poem (in translation) so I was a bit hazy on the plot, but the film reminded me how it goes: a gang of horny, drunken extras from Shrek with randomly assigned accents fight the supersized version of Gollum, and then their leader gets it on with Angelina Jolie.
Whilst the CGI performance capture malarkey used for the animation is technically impressive, it's still far worse than just showing the actors, and seems a bit pointless given that films like 300 or Sin City do a perfectly good job with real actors against a CGI backdrop. The animation is more convincing on old faces with lots of wrinkles to show movement, so the more the CGI makeover flatters an actor's appearance, the less it flatters their performance.
The script was written by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary, the latter being the coauthor of Pulp Fiction. I assume that Neil Gaiman contributed the reworking of the disparate monster-fights of the original into a dark fairy tale, and contributed the concern with how the events relate to the story of Beowulf being told; I assume that Avary contributed the idea that everyone should be a horny drunken thug. Whilst the dark ages presumably did contain more horny drunken thugs than noble warriors, this move does tend to rob events of epic grandeur.
There was a short story in Neil Gaiman's hit-and-miss collection "Smoke and Mirrors" about a film's original concept being mangled by the Hollywood production process. This makes it interesting that Gaiman has now contributed to a film where Grendel's mother is made over from "a monster" to "Angelina Jolie, naked". I like to think that there's a film executive out there who sits in when a film is pitched and, every single time, says "You know what this film needs? Angelina Jolie, naked." To be fair, this executive is always right. The other possibility is that Gaiman, having seen how these things work, simply pitched the film thus: "I've got this idea for a movie about Angelina Jolie naked. I call it 'Naked Angelina Jolie Movie', or 'Beowulf' for short."
I'm being bitchy here, but I basically enjoyed the film. There are some impressive visuals (above and beyond Angelina Jolie), Grendel is nicely done, and the film's numerous flaws are amusing rather than annoying.
I went to see Beowulf at the weekend. It's been a while since I read the poem (in translation) so I was a bit hazy on the plot, but the film reminded me how it goes: a gang of horny, drunken extras from Shrek with randomly assigned accents fight the supersized version of Gollum, and then their leader gets it on with Angelina Jolie.
Whilst the CGI performance capture malarkey used for the animation is technically impressive, it's still far worse than just showing the actors, and seems a bit pointless given that films like 300 or Sin City do a perfectly good job with real actors against a CGI backdrop. The animation is more convincing on old faces with lots of wrinkles to show movement, so the more the CGI makeover flatters an actor's appearance, the less it flatters their performance.
The script was written by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary, the latter being the coauthor of Pulp Fiction. I assume that Neil Gaiman contributed the reworking of the disparate monster-fights of the original into a dark fairy tale, and contributed the concern with how the events relate to the story of Beowulf being told; I assume that Avary contributed the idea that everyone should be a horny drunken thug. Whilst the dark ages presumably did contain more horny drunken thugs than noble warriors, this move does tend to rob events of epic grandeur.
There was a short story in Neil Gaiman's hit-and-miss collection "Smoke and Mirrors" about a film's original concept being mangled by the Hollywood production process. This makes it interesting that Gaiman has now contributed to a film where Grendel's mother is made over from "a monster" to "Angelina Jolie, naked". I like to think that there's a film executive out there who sits in when a film is pitched and, every single time, says "You know what this film needs? Angelina Jolie, naked." To be fair, this executive is always right. The other possibility is that Gaiman, having seen how these things work, simply pitched the film thus: "I've got this idea for a movie about Angelina Jolie naked. I call it 'Naked Angelina Jolie Movie', or 'Beowulf' for short."
I'm being bitchy here, but I basically enjoyed the film. There are some impressive visuals (above and beyond Angelina Jolie), Grendel is nicely done, and the film's numerous flaws are amusing rather than annoying.
