Comic-Con Report 2007: Beowulf Sum-Up

By Ryan 'The Rican with the Irish name' McLelland on July 26, 2007

Most of the Latino Review crew was onhand last night for the screening of Beowulf's teaser trailer, trailer, and the second reel of the film.  It was all set up by Roger Avary (Pulp Fiction, Killing Zoe) and Neil Gaiman (Sandman, Mirrormask, American Gods) who were on hand to tell the crowd that we would be the first to see anything from the film.  They also said that we were only seeing the second reel because nothing else exists for the film yet.

Now you can peep the trailer right here.  The totally amazing thing to me is that this movie is animated.  That's right just like Shrek.  However I never knew that it just looked like real actors with CGI.  Because of this the 3-D in the film is something I've never seen before.  It was...amazing.  Long gone are those crappy blue and red glasses and what we have now are some Buddy Hollyesque specs.


What we saw?  Beowulf had defeated Grendel by closing the monster's arm in a door thus lopping the appendage off.  Beowulf does this naked.  It made me laugh because the 3-D was used to pretty much help hide Beowulf's ding-dong. 

Grendel returns to his mother - the Angelina Jolie demon I'll just refer to as Joliemon and she gets pissed.  Joliemon goes and kills all of Beowulf's bunk mates leaving only the warrior alive.

Beowulf is confused and goes to the king (Anthony Hopkins) who explains that Grendel might be dead but Joliemon is still alive.  So Beowulf is off to fight her until he gets into her cave and find a very naked Joliemon popping out of the water and seducing him.  Yes Joliemon isn't like NAKED NAKED but you pretty much will now have an idea what it looks like to wake up next to Angelina every morning.


I can't explain how phenomenal the 3-D is.  The technology is so new, rich, and amazing that Beowulf will sell a gazillion tickets (that's right...I said gazillion) just on the technology alone.  No matter the faults with the film it is an experience you can't have from watching this in your living room or on your computer having downloaded Beowulf off the net.  It has to be seen in theaters to be believed.

The downside?  Similiar to Zemekis' Polar Express there is a lack of emotion from the characters, something that made alot more sense once I learned that this was animated.  Jolie did a wonderful job, John Malkovich looked quite eerie, and Anthony Hopkins was amazing. 

The monster problem was Ray Winstone as Beowulf.  The depth of the character was awful and his voice...ugh...his voice did not sell it.  It seemed like an actor who was just handed the script and read the lines.  Kellvin had said, "It's like 300 Part II" after seeing the Beowulf clips of which I replied.  "Yeah...but worser."

The comparisons will be there between the two films but what sets 300 apart from this film was Gerard Butler and how SOLD 300.  The man could shout out, "LET'S GET SOME MILK FOR MY COFFEE!" and I'd be ready with a spear to go help him.  Winstone's performance here lacks what the character needs.  If Beowulf is supposed to be this great warrior, why does he feel he's sleepwalking through a performance?  And a digital performance at that!

There were also some 3-D shots that felt like they were there just for 3-D sake.  I KNOW it's a 3-D movie but do we really need the 'handing off the sword to Beowulf' in 3-D?  I can't express how amazing the 3-D looked in this film so maybe this little gripe just gets a bit nit-picky.  However once in awhile the 3-D just felt forced.

Beyond that the movie did look amazing even if I didn't buy Winstone as Beowulf.  He's not the true star here...the 3-D is.  The film is great, the performances great to decent, but the 3-D is so incredibly phenomenal that you'll want to bring extra pair of undies to the theater just in case you pee your pants.


Now it would have been WONDERFUL to have audio from the Q&A session following the second reel that Neil and Roger did.  However we weren't allowed to bring our audio recorders in.  However the after party did have some great publicity shots and props that were worth looking at while also having Neil talking to fans before disappearing into the night.

Got news Comic-Con or otherwise?  Hit Ryan up at ryan@latinoreview.com!

Source:Latino Review

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