DOWN (Dining Out With Nerds) report: Beowulf

“Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” (G. K. Chesterton.)

I’m sorry this review is so late. Between being tied up with other things (note: www.thedailywtf.com can eat up hours of time at a sitting), research into the original, a new job, and the normal magazine publication schedule, Beowulf may be out on DVD by the time you read this.

This was a reasonably exciting action movie, hurt by the motion-capture digitization. I was continually distracted by the actors being almost human but also almost animated. It looked as if a lot of small facial expressions got lost, which critics described as a Botox effect. However, it also allowed digital manipulation of some outstanding action scenes. This technology is almost ready for the movies. (Normally we go to the AMC in Natick, which may be showing ten different movies on any night. For this movie, we saw the 3D IMAX version, which is not much more expensive. The 3D effects were restrained, with only the occasional sword poking into the audience to remind you which end of a dangerous pointy object the character was on.) I was also distracted by the heroes reminding us now and then that they are Geats (pronounced “Geets”) which seemed seriously not heroic to my ears. Still, the fights and the monsters looked very good. Acting was pretty good.

Famous SF writer Neil Gaiman took some liberties with the original story. This may or may not matter to you; I don’t feel that the movie has to be an exact retelling of the saga. In the original, Beowulf did not fight Grendel while naked. In the movie, this exciting fight scene was practically ruined by what seemed to be a direct steal from Austin Powers as the director strategically placed furniture, people, and even weapons in order to prevent an R rating. Also, the original Beowulf was not seduced with an offer of eternal life by Grendel’s mother. (Spoiler: in the original, he found a handy sword nearby and killed her.) Grendel’s mother was played by Angelina Jolie, who was reportedly upset by just how nude she appeared to be in the movie. Think X-Men’s Mystique but without the blue scales. And Grendel’s mother survives in this version. Perhaps we can expect a sequel. Beowulf II: The Revenge?

One translation of the original epic is at http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/Literature.RinglBeowulf (several other translations are on the Web). It’s about 23,000 words long. I found it very slow reading. It spends a lot of time on the important cultural traits of heroes in those days: family lineage and history, revenge, heroic deeds; not what we are accustomed to today. The storyline got no more than equal time. Also, I easily lose track of characters under the best of circumstances, so distinguishing Healfdene, Hygelac, Hrothgar et al was difficult for me. But the internal rhyming and rhythm are catchy (“...he looked forward to fabulous feasting. But fate would forbid him to eat people ever again after that night...”) It also significantly enhances Lord of the Rings by demonstrating the literary antecedents of much of that story, the monsters, the language, the setting, and the family lineage themes.