the_plunk (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} the_plunk) wrote,@ 2007-11-16 17:34:00 |
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I Just Saw Beowulf
And I don't feel up to doing a stupid review with ironic pictures and all that tonight. In fact, I don't really have any amusing phony complaints anyway, so I'll just say that it's good and that you should go see it. It's in 3-D and requires those Captain EO polarized light 3-D glasses to watch, which I didn't know until I got to the theater. I don't know if every showing is doing this, or just some theaters. There are a lot of moments that feature pretty gratuitously showy, Count Floyd-style 3-D effects, though, so it's probably 3-D wherever you go. At first they kind of turned me off, along with everything being CG and slightly cartoony, but then I realized that both of those things were thematically relevant and actually serve the story. Epics are outragously cartoony and unbelievable to modern audiences, so it kind of fits the movie. Then in the second half things change and the movie becomes all about loss and redemption and mortality and the end of the pagan era and I realized that the movie was actually pretty smart. I think it's also all about the power of storytelling, which is the only kind of story Neil Gaiman is able to write anyway. Two people in the theater had an argument while that part of the movie was playing, so I can't be entirely sure. I am sure that Crispin Glover is the world's most perfect Grendel, though, and that it's clearly the most perfect role he's ever had.
Also, there are no ads before the movie at all. Just trailers for other movies, one of which is also in 3-D. There aren't any car commercials or Army ads where a guy fights a dragon or any other kind of noxious garbage that normally gets run before the movie starts. I asked one the theater employees whether that was something the theater decided to do, and she said that the studio distributed the movie without ads. So, if you go see Beowulf, there will be no ads. That easily made it the best moviegoing experience I've had in a while.
And for any students of Anglo-Saxon literature out there, be warned that the movie isn't perfectly faithful to the poem, in that it finds ways of linking the first and second half of the story to give it some thematic depth. So, it's kind of an original story that uses the events of the poem Beowulf in order to say something new, if that makes any sense. It's not like the just switched things around to get more action sequences or car chases or something. It's different, but I liked it. I say check it out.
And I don't feel up to doing a stupid review with ironic pictures and all that tonight. In fact, I don't really have any amusing phony complaints anyway, so I'll just say that it's good and that you should go see it. It's in 3-D and requires those Captain EO polarized light 3-D glasses to watch, which I didn't know until I got to the theater. I don't know if every showing is doing this, or just some theaters. There are a lot of moments that feature pretty gratuitously showy, Count Floyd-style 3-D effects, though, so it's probably 3-D wherever you go. At first they kind of turned me off, along with everything being CG and slightly cartoony, but then I realized that both of those things were thematically relevant and actually serve the story. Epics are outragously cartoony and unbelievable to modern audiences, so it kind of fits the movie. Then in the second half things change and the movie becomes all about loss and redemption and mortality and the end of the pagan era and I realized that the movie was actually pretty smart. I think it's also all about the power of storytelling, which is the only kind of story Neil Gaiman is able to write anyway. Two people in the theater had an argument while that part of the movie was playing, so I can't be entirely sure. I am sure that Crispin Glover is the world's most perfect Grendel, though, and that it's clearly the most perfect role he's ever had.
Also, there are no ads before the movie at all. Just trailers for other movies, one of which is also in 3-D. There aren't any car commercials or Army ads where a guy fights a dragon or any other kind of noxious garbage that normally gets run before the movie starts. I asked one the theater employees whether that was something the theater decided to do, and she said that the studio distributed the movie without ads. So, if you go see Beowulf, there will be no ads. That easily made it the best moviegoing experience I've had in a while.
And for any students of Anglo-Saxon literature out there, be warned that the movie isn't perfectly faithful to the poem, in that it finds ways of linking the first and second half of the story to give it some thematic depth. So, it's kind of an original story that uses the events of the poem Beowulf in order to say something new, if that makes any sense. It's not like the just switched things around to get more action sequences or car chases or something. It's different, but I liked it. I say check it out.
