Beowulf 3D: Almost Out Of The Uncanny Valley?
As a late birthday present Gail and Bryon watched Cory for Meg and me last Saturday. We took the time to go see Beowulf in 3D.
The way the actual Anglo-Saxon text was integrated into the songs and the speech of Grendel was well done. The additions to the story line to make the story more than just "I am Beowulf, I killed a monster and his mother and then 30 years later I killed a dragon and died" were well done, a tied into the mythology setting. If the movie had been made with more traditional film-making (live action actors, CGI Monsters) , We'd only be talking about the brilliance of the Gaiman/Avery script, but with "Performance Capture" and 3D presentation are really what steals the show.
Unlike the dead mannequin eyes all the Tom Hanks clones had in The Polar Express1 we see glimpses of actual emotion being portrayed by these fancy puppets. This is partly because the 3D nature of the film adds a lot of realism, but also the subtle movement of an eyelid or movement of pupils allow Anthony Hopkins character to really express the sorrow and grief he feels. Unfortunately, that level of emotion still hit or miss. For every character interaction where I feel like I'm seeing real emotion, there are 3 where it just doesn't look right, often coming from John Malkovich and Robin Wright Penn's characters. And I can't define what's not right2. Perhaps I'm just studying their faces a lot more closely because I know what I'm seeing is not a direct capture of a human on film, so what I'm noticing are flaws in a performance translated by the computers to the screen, not a flaw in the capturing process.
Overall, I give this movie 2.5 waxy turnips.