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Beowulf: Unrated Director's Cut
R1 - America - Paramount Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Andreas Petersen (1st March 2008). |
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The Film
 Flashback to three years ago: Oh man, did you hear that Robert Zemeckis is working on a "Beowulf" movie? Yeah, did you hear that Neil Gaiman AND Roger Avery are penning the script? Do you have any idea how awesome that is going to be? There is no way that movie is going to NOT be awesome! Flash forward to today: Crap. Nothing stings worse the potential of a great film being spoiled. I see the cast and the crew of this movie working on one of my favorite classical tales, and all I can expect are great things. I hate to say I was sorely disappointed with "Beowulf". The film begins with the slob King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins), ruler of the Thanes, leading a feast in his great new hall. The film wants you to know that all these people do is eat, burp, drink, then probably eat some more. The only person not having the time of their life is Wealthow (Robin Wright Penn), the Queen. The sinful and depraved acts of the court are soon interrupted by Grendel (Crispin Glover), who tears into the hall, proceeding to throw many Thanes towards the camera. This brings me to first and possibly biggest problem with the movie. "Beowulf" was shot as a 3D film. When a movie is shot thusly, it really doesn't transfer well back to two dimensions. While watching the movie in intended 3D, it is pretty neat to see gold, soldiers, and blood thrown at your face. But when you are seeing it in boring 2D, the gimmick is never even born, and just gets annoying after a while. And without the 3D scenes, "Beowulf" has very little going for it. The film feels like it can never decide whether it is classic literature, or a new badass take on the classic tale. The results mostly feel skewed and awkward. This isn't helped by the many scenes in which nudity is blocked out with childishly placed candle sticks, or golden paint covering the breasts of an otherwise naked Grendel's Mother (Angelina Jolie). Things don't get much better when the titular hero arrives into town, offering to slay Grendel. I just never bought into the performance behind "Beowulf", let alone any of the other characters. Everything just feels so artificial. This leads me to wonder why the movie is CG. The characters were mapped and digitized, but they all look pretty much like their real life counterparts (aside from the title character, played by the doughy Ray Winstone). The attempted blend of CG and real life animations looks more creepy than interesting, and made it nearly impossible to focus on the film's dialogue or story. After watching the movie again, I'm hard-pressed to find one redeemable feature within it. I didn't like the acting, the way things were constantly flying at the screen, or the liberties taken with the original material, which make up for a lackluster story at best. On the upside, some of the sea monsters were kind of neat. This movie just doesn't do the epic story justice, and I'm starting to think that no film ever could. It should also be noted that film is presented as the :Unrated Director's Cut' version with scenes "Too intense for theaters", though I honestly didn't notice what was added in from the theatrical run. According to the press release provided by Paramount Pictures, the theatrical cut and unrated cut have an identical running time of 114 minutes, so I am very curious as to what was added in.
Video
The movie is offered in a gorgeous 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. If there is one thing "Beowulf" did right, it was its picture quality. At times I could hardly believe I was watching a DVD. The picture is amazingly clear, nearing HD quality.
Audio
"Beowulf" is available in English, French and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 surround tracks. If "Beowulf" did two things right, it would be video and audio. The sound of the film is clear as rain, coming out just at all the right places at the right time. From a technical standpoint, the disc is a work of art.
Extras
"Beowulf" has an impressive amount of extras to offer all on the second disc, including 5 featurettes, deleted scenes, a theatrical trailer and some bonus trailers. These are examined below. The first extra is "A Hero's Journey: The Making of Beowulf" that runs for 23 minutes 55 seconds. This featurette chronicles the film from the early rehearsals, through the process of motion capturing the performances, and to the film's eventual wrap. The primary focus of the 23 minutes is on the :mo-cap', and should be interesting to anyone who hasn't seen the making-of on the Zemeckis produced "Monster House" (2006), because the two are very similar in explaining how the process works. There is a certain comedic level offered from this extra, as it is incredibly silly to see actors take their roles so seriously in black spandex suits with dots all over their faces. The featurette concludes with Zemeckis claiming that his movie is going to open doors to a whole new generation of film. The next extra is "Beasts of Burden : Designing the Creatures of Beowulf" a featurette that runs for 6 minutes 56 seconds. Since the monsters of the film were easily the most entertaining part, this short featurette was slightly interesting. The focus on Grendel really shows how much the crew wanted him to be like Gollum from "The Lord of the Rings" films (2001-2003) however. When the focus is switched to Jolie's performance as Grendel's mother, the special FX crew basically gushes over how beautiful she is. This clip also offers a better look at the movie's sea monsters, which really didn't get enough screen time. Next up is "The Origins of Beowulf" another featurette that runs for 5 minutes 13 seconds, playing as an homage to the original literary work that the film is based on. The film dissects why the story has survived as long as it has and why certain changes to the story were made as well as why Zemeckis thought it needed a modern day adaptation. Considering how much the film touts a "This ain't your daddy's Beowulf" attitude, it treats the original epic poem with the utmost respect in this extra. "Creating the Ultimate Beowulf" runs for 1 minute 59 seconds, and is a short featurette explaining how the titular character was shaped. "The Art of Beowulf" runs for 5 minutes 25 seconds, this featurette shows how the look of the movie came to be, explaining how the filmmakers wanted to ad a new twist to the classic tale, mixing a look of fantasy with a look a realism. The disc also includes six deleted scenes in the form of incomplete animatics. They are: - "Wealthow Shows Beowulf the Sundial" runs for 1 minute 42 seconds : In this scene the king's wife develops her affection for the hero, and Beowulf makes it clear that he is a hero that is unafraid of death. - "Beowulf Boasts to the People of Herot" runs for 1 minute 11 seconds : a scene in which the hero's vanity is emphasized. - "Celebration and Seduction" runs for 2 minutes 13 seconds : Beowulf's troops get drunk and flirt with the local women of Herot. Beowulf and Wealthow's relationship is also solidified more so in this scene. - "Wulfgar Greets Beowulf at the Stockade" runs for 1 minute 21 seconds : Beowulf's troops show a sign of good faith to their guests. - "Beowulf's Day Unferth Finds the Horn" runs for 2 minutes 31 seconds : Beowulf is heralded by the people as a hero, while Unferth complains about the hero's supposed feats, while Cain unearths something that may challenge the hero's word. - "Cain on the Barrows (Original)" runs for 1 minute 11 seconds : Cain explains how he found Beowulf's magic horn. Also included is the theatrical trailer which runs for 1 minute 56 seconds, and some bonus trailers for: - "Iron Man" which runs for 2 minutes 32 seconds. - "Shine a Light" which runs for 2 minutes 31 seconds. - "The Kite Runner" which runs for 1 minute 58 seconds.
Overall
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