'Beowulf' may be the future of animation
|
 | |
By G. Michael Dobbs
Managing Editor
Some weeks are harder to get through than others and viewing the films for this column made this a notably tough week.
Margot at the Wedding
This is the kind of filmmaking that compels me to find and slap writer and director Noah Baumbach repeatedly. This movie is hopelessly pretentious piffle involving characters one instantly hates and trivializes situations which otherwise could be the meat of an interesting drama.
Taking one part Ingmar Bergman and two parts Woody Allen, Baumbach has concocted a story that is sold as a biting social comedy about dysfunctional sisters. Now I have a broad sense of humor. I love offbeat comedy, black comedy and politically incorrect comedy. I'll laugh at all sorts of material. I failed to see any humor in this film.
Margot (Nicole Kidman) is an upper class member of the New York literary scene who writes autobiographical stories about her messed up family for magazines such as "The New Yorker" and "Harpers." She's leaving her husband by way of attending the wedding of one of her two sisters, Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh), at their childhood home on some island community, perhaps Martha's Vineyard. From the moment she arrives, she does everything she can to drive a wedge between her sister and her fianc .
She is clearly having some sort of emotional crisis and her personality changes from passive to psychopathic from scene to scene. It's a knee-slapper.
And there's a tree that falls on a tent! A lost dog! A game of crochet in which people don't know how to play! Nasty neighbors who roast a pig! The fun never stops.
These are people with whom I can't identify doing things I don't care about. While I'm sure they are plenty of pretentious self-absorbed culture snobs out there, I simply don't want to waste my time watching a movie about them especially a film incapable of actually presenting a story.
The special feature on this DVD is a conversation between Leigh and Baumbach about how great the movie is. As the late Bill Gaines, the publisher of MAD, would say, "Yeeech!"
For more information, log onto www.paramount.com/homeentertainment.
Beowulf: Director's Cut
The theatrical running time of "Beowulf" director Robert Zemeckis' adaptation of the oldest narrative in the English language was 113 minutes. This unrated director's cut with "violence too intense for theaters" runs 114 minutes.
As I watched it I tried to see some big difference, but I couldn't. And although there could have been something fairly significant accomplished in a minute of screen time, I just couldn't see it.
I love it when they have to resort to lying to you to sell the movie.
"Beowulf" shook up the animation community with its publicity how this might be the future of animation. The film was made by shooting a live action cast going through the motions while wearing a special suit and make-up that captured their movements. That action then was the basis for computer animation. It is a 21st century updating of rotoscoping the technique to produce life-like animation developed by Max Fleischer in 1917.
The result is a film that looks and moves like a very detailed video game. While a great deal of talent clearly went into this production, some of the things that are prized most in animation such as the ability of the characters to express emotion are sorely lacking.
Zemeckis had a box office success in a previous motion capture film, "The Polar Express," and he is a true believer in this technology. At this point, though, it has all of the disadvantages and none of the advantages of either live action or animation. The characters move stiffly and their faces seem frozen.
As far as a story goes, "Beowulf" has some good moments and some truly ridiculous ones. Our hero insists on fighting the monster Grendel in the nude, so the filmmakers have to use a variety of props in front of him so the rating isn't affected.
Speaking of affecting the rating, Angelina Jolie plays Grendel's mother, a shape-shifting demon that seduces Beowulf. The character's designers actually shaped her feet like high heels the film is set in fifth century Denmark undoubtedly to make her sexier. By the way, to titillate the movie's target audience of young men, Jolie's character is seen in the nude. To make sure the rating wasn't made more severe, she has no nipples or any other naughty bits.
These are silly, distracting decisions that show Zemeckis did a really sloppy job as a director. I couldn't get over the fact the hero shouts "I am Beowulf!" several times in the movie in a way that becomes comical. It's not meant to be.
The performers do try their best. Ray Winstone has a great voice for the hero, while Anthony Hopkins, Jolie and Robin Wright Penn provide as good as support as they were allowed by the script and the director. Upon a second viewing I appreciated Crispin Glover's take on Grendel, who is far less a monster and far more a tortured outsider.
The DVD has several deleted dialogue scenes that don't really expand the story very much as well as several features. The most interesting one shows the motion capture process. I found it fascinating that no one used the term "animation" to describe any part of the production process the preferred term is "performance capture."
Although "Beowulf" was presented in 3-D in theaters, the image here is a conventional one. I wouldn't be surprised if in a couple of months there is a deluxe 3-D DVD released and perhaps this time the European cut of the film, which supposedly has more gore and sex, will be part of that. Companies releasing DVDs understand hardcore fanboys will buy the same film over and over to get the most complete package.
For more information, log onto www.paramount.com/homeentertainment.
|
|
