"Beowulf" (*1/2)

I do not exactly know what to think of "Beowulf" after my initial viewing. It is a visually mesmerizing film that should be considering revolutionary in modern cinema, a step forward. On the other hand, the script is so blatantly awful that the only thing that kept me interested was the 3D effects.

"Beowulf," in the beginning, follows the classic epic pretty accurately, but as the film progresses it stretches farther and farther away from the source material. The basic story follows Beowulf, a vain hero who can defeat anything he fights. Once Beowulf defeats the monstrous Grendel, he becomes enraptured with Grendel's mother, hopelessly falling for her seduction. The book does not have anything about Grendel's mother being seductive, and the love story is no where in the text, at least not to my knowledge. I read the book my senior year and did not particularly care for it. I found Beowulf to be a vain bastard; he came off as annoying. I think that was intentional so I am not going to bash the book for that, but the book is definitely not one of my favorites. The new events expressed in the film are interesting and weaken Beowulf, makes him more human. I liked this aspect of the film, but it was totally unexpected. This infuriated me in a way because I was expecting something and got something totally different. It was an interesting idea, but it should not have played such a dominant role in the second portion of the film. It seems like since Angelina Jolie was cast as Grendel's mother, this part of the film was put in just to take advantage of her sex appeal.

The dialogue in the film is cheesy and filmed with innuendos. This was intentional, but the audience is laughing at the film, not with it. I just did not think "Beowulf" should have been as comedic as it was portrayed. The camera angles during Beowulf's fight against Grendel were also amusing, garnering plenty of laughs from the audience. It seemed like the camera was playing see how many different angles we can use to conceal Beowulf's penis.

Now, the thing that did work for the film was the visual effects. If you cannot see the film in 3D in your area do not bother going to see it. I think the 3D effects were put to the best use in this film than any other film I have seen. Past 3D films like "Monster House," "The Nightmare Before Christmas," and "Superman Returns" have all been in 3D, and while there was a difference, I did not really feel like anything was popping out at me. This is not the case with "Beowulf." The battle scenes are exhilarating and would not have been the same in the 2D format. The 3D effects were the only reason that my eyes did not start venturing over to the nearest exit sign.

The animation was interesting and looked quite authentic at times. There were other times, however, that the characters looked like wax figures. This is especially noticeable in the first song that the queen (Robin Wright Penn) sings. The technology is advancing, but it has not been perfected yet. There are still a few kinks that could be worked out, but it is still a huge step forward for future filmmaking.

Overall, "Beowulf" is a valiant effort. The visual effects are outstanding; it is just too bad they could not have been used on a film featuring a much better script.