THE FILM

This review examines the Unrated Director’s Cut of BEOWULF, with two key differences from its theatrical release: primarily, the HD-DVD does not provide the eye-popping 3D presentation BEOWULF enjoyed in special engagements — an omission which may prove a plus or minus, depending how viewers enjoyed were distracted by that special effect; and this cut adds a few extra shots of violent gore at the hands of menacing monster Grendel, who rips and tears at a few more Geatsmen warriors to spill a few more gallons of CG-blood on the mead hall floor.  Beyond those two variations, HD viewers get the same film albeit in a home high-def transfer.

Of all the computer-enhanced roles, Ray Winstone as the title hero gives the most successfully translated performance, made all the more impressive since the blond, muscle-packed Beowulf bears an uncanny non-resemblance to Winstone himself.  Winstone doesn’t allow the translation of his mo-cap performance into CG-avatar to mask or muffle his acting skills.  High marks also to Brendan Gleeson who, as Wiglaf, helps ground Beowulf’s monster-slaying bravado with earnest friendship, concern and brutal honesty when the hero gets too heady for his own good.

If any one actor fares least well from the motion-capture animation technique, it’s Robin Wright Penn whose natural physical beauty and acting subtlety rise above the surface of her confining digital masque all too rarely.  Contrast this with the blatant obviousness of Angelina Jolie’s turn as Grendel’s mother, her naked voluptuousness captured in curvaceous detail, and it remains apparent that Zemeckis’ use of mo-cap technology, visually striking as it may be, remains for the moment a much more effective 3D painter’s medium than a fully reliable filmmaking tool.  The more successful middleground between these extremes appear in Crispin Glover’s shrieking, shambling portrayal of Grendel, a gore-thirsty demon literally wracked and ruined by his own monstrous heritage.  There’s almost nothing human about Grendel at all, yet close viewing reveals Glover’s inimitable work at hand.

In all fairness, BEOWULF is certainly a ground-breaking advance over the sadly stiff and emotionally distant results seen in Zemeckis’ previous effort, THE POLAR EXPRESS.  And if motion-capture animation is to have a future in digital cinema, all these steps march artists and audience toward that goal: when a new medium is in its infancy, plenty of baby steps are required, and to his credit Zemeckis is taking baby leaps and bounds instead. BEOWULF certainly raises the bar and this new sub-artform, but heroic glory still remains slightly beyond his grasp.  If only this technology and its animators, skilled as they are, could leap that CG-gap which leaves the characters’ eyes so often dead and too dark — a technical trap which Pixar animators simply bypass with less veracity and more emotion — mo-cap animation will break through the barrier which still tends to keep viewers’ hearts at arm’s length from its stories.

As written by the hands of Gaiman and Avary, BEOWULF blends the monster-and-mayhem fantasy of THE LORD OF THE RINGS (pick one) with the digital grit of 300 but, ironically enough, without the latter’s Spartan ethos of spearpoint poetry.  Doug Chiang’s production design glorifies vistas and viscera which otherwise could not support Beowulf’s epic excesses, as the bonus feature segments delightfully reveal.

The HD-DVD presentation of BEOWULF shows off the digital animation’s strengths just as clearly as its shortcomings, but this is no fault of the crisply balanced MPEG4/AVC 1080p reproduction of the original 2.35:1 aspect ratio film.  Chiang’s painterly style and brooding color palette makes the most of the hi-def format’s visual range and supports (in some cases, leads) the dramatic action with beautiful effect.  The 5.1 Dolby Digital Plus audio track delivers all the Grendel-howling, bone-crunching action with dynamic punch, but also lets quiet, atmospheric moments out in the Danish wilds and inside Grendel’s cave play with delicate detail. Perhaps not as deliberately awe-inspiring as was 300’s sound design, but BEOWULF’s sound and fury make the visually unreal more convincing and involving.

SPECIAL FEATURES 

Along with the feature film, Disc One offers an HD-exclusive bonus: BEOWULF IN THE VOLUME, an optional picture-in-picture enhancement of the movie which insets raw behind-the-scenes video of the actors on-set in The Volume, enacting the scenes as their shown in final animated form.  Btw, The Volume sounds very Matrix-like and cool, even as it shares some lineage in digital cinema, but basically it’s a hip term for the featureless stage bedecked with infrared cameras which capture stage action in a three-dimensional volume of data.  Now you know.   I suggest watching BEOWULF first as intended with The Volume (not the sound!) turned off, then watch the numerous making-of documentaries on Disc Two, then go back and watch the feature with The Volume option switched on to view the side-by-side comparison.

Disc Two is the true treasure of this HD set, boasting eight making-of and bonus features which explore the creation of this epic, most of all which are happily presented in HD as well.  A Hero’s Journey: the Making of BEOWULF spends a good deal of time (though not too much) documenting the overall creation, inspiration and production of this difficult, mind-warping venture into stage fantasy and technical imagination.  One can’t help but wonder how the actors don’t go a little mad along the way, having not only to imagine a world which doesn’t exist around them, but to constantly remember their exact location and purpose in every moment with no cues to guide them but day-glo wireframe props and fellow actors in pingpong-ball wetsuits.  This feature has two viewing options of its own: a standard Play mode which runs the entire documentary uninterrupted, and an Interactive mode which offers pop-up boxes of additional trivia and icon signals which, when activated, branch off into more detailed clips on a given subject.  In reality, these interactive elements are often viewable elsewhere on their own in...

The Journey Continues which gives ten specific subjects stand-alone featurettes on topics including: The Volume, T Pose, What is E.O.G.?, Lay of the Land, Givin’ Props, Scanners, Stunts and Rigs, Plan of Attack, Fight Me and Baby, It’s Cold Inside — the latter a humorous look at temperature control in this mo-cap studio and practical jokes with a thermometer.

Beasts of Burden, as one might well expect, studies the creation of the monstrosities and demons which threaten BEOWULF’s dark and dangerous kingdom. Doug Chiang and others pay artistic tribute to Crispin Glover’s performance and considerable influence on the actual design of the deformed demon Grendel.  Also of interest are creation of Grendel’s Mother, the sea monsters Beowulf battles in the deep, and the dragon which Ray Winstone performed himself for dramatic reasons to be revealed.

The Origins of Beowulf offers a short featurette essay on the literary and historic origins of the Beowulf epic legend, begun as an oral myth retold over centuries and eventually preserved in text — one of it not the first ever told in the Old English language.  This discussion evolves into how screenwriters Roger Avary and Neil Gaiman retold their own version of the tale as a filmable script and story.

Creating the Ultimate Beowulf depicts the artistic conceptualization of this larger-than-life hero, realized in character paintings and enacted by Ray Winstone who is transformed via motion-capture magic into an idealistic warrior of epic style.

The Art of Beowulf assembles concept paintings and sketches into a video montage of film clips and computer-expanded still art which gave BEOWULF is striking visual power and moody emotion.  This encompasses looks at character, creature and costume design, plus digital sets and landscapes which fill out this CG-world of demons and devil-slayers.  One of the better bonus segments, this featurette truly allows Doug Chiang’s brilliant and dramatically interwoven designs to enjoy the spotlight, as they richly deserve.

A Conversation with Robert Zemeckis is compiled from a November 2007 appearance he made at an early preview of BEOWULF at USC, discussing his ten-year journey from buying the Avary/Gaiman script to finally producing it as a motion-capture animated feature.  One of the few standard-def presentations, but given its stage Q&A format, HD presentation is hardly necessary either.

Deleted Scenes provides 11 additional clips which were cut or amended in the final version of the film, mostly all in rough animation form.  Dramatically, it’s easy to see why the scenes were excised from the film, but they serve value as insights into the animation process and worth a look for such edification.

Rounding out Disc Two are Theatrical Trailer and a Settings menu which offer different audio tracks and captioning for the bonus features — always a handy extra for foreign language and hearing impaired viewers.

Across this two-disc Unrated Director’s Cut collection, you definitely get more BEOWULF bang for your buck and the HD-DVD release presents it all in high-def glory.  While this expanded version of the film offers little difference from that seen in theaters, it offers plenty of heroic battle with mythical demons and dragons amid a harsh and brooding world where darkness constantly threatens at the torchlit borders of human civilization.  BEOWULF may not be a by-the-book film translation of the legendary Old English tale scholars would welcome, but that will probably be good news to any student forced to plow through the difficult text of the origin work. Instead, this digitally enacted and animated adventure is closer to a thrill-seeking video game with some solid acting chops at its computerized core.

ADDENDUM ON THE HD-DVD DISC FORMAT

Of course the incredibly high-profile news of this week, before BEOWULF even hits store shelves, is Toshiba's announcement they are discontinuing production of their proprietary HD-DVD technology, ending the high-definition format war in home entertainment and paving the way for Sony's Blu-Ray format to claim victory.

While BEOWULF will likely appear on Blu-Ray sometime in the near future when Paramount Home Entertainment (re)converts to Blu-Ray format releases, this FilmEdge review will serve those who choose to purchase this title while available and provide a preview of its eventual Blu-Ray release.  Likely some format and bonus features will either operate differently or change entirely when BEOWULF arises on Blu-Ray, and FilmEdge will cover those changes in a future review.