Beowulf gets a 5 star review in my local paper

[NewJeffCT]

sounds pretty promising. They also gave a rare 5 star review to "No Country for Old Men" as well.

>>>
Beowulf," that original brawling, arm-yanking, eye-gouging epic of Anglo-Saxon lore, earns an eye-popping treatment in a new film from the team that gave us "The Polar Express." It's so thrilling, so stunningly rendered, that you will forget you're looking at animation and tumble into this Dark Ages quest, a story of pride, bravery, greed and lust, and their consequences.

They use motion-capture animation — actors acting out scenes with animators, and computers turning that acting into painted characters in front of visionary backdrops. — to create a world of legend, a literal "dark ages" as seen on the pages of a Batman-ish graphic novel. The faces are less plastic-looking than Polar Express (if still a bit stiff), and the action is more vivid and lifelike.

But see "Beowulf" in a cinema showing it in 3-D, and you'll want to throw out your HDTV. There has never been a movie that looked like this.

http://www.courant.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/hc-beowulfrev.art0nov16,0,1553824.story

[AllegroRondo]

1. My paper gave it a B

which is pretty good for them. The reviewer said the forced "look what we can do with 3-D" scenes gave it a lower grade, but overall good action movie.

They gave the new Dustin Hoffman / Natalie Portman film a C-

[BarenakedLady]

2. The dude

and his friend are going to see it tonight. I passed. I'll watch it someday I suppose.

[gmoney]

3. NPR trashed it...

...the audio clips sounded dreadful...

[NewJeffCT]

6. Rotten Tomatoes is pretty positive on it as well

I think they had it at 77%

[NightWatcher]

4. had to read the cursed epic poem back in highschool

still couldnt tell you what it is about

[sarge43]

8. If you're ever up to tackling it again,

recommend the Seamus Heaney translation. Keeps the poetry, but makes the language bearable for modern ears. For example, "I'll order my own comrades on their word of honour to watch your boat down there on the strand -- keep her safe in her fresh tar, until the time comes for her curved prow to preen on the waves and bear this hero back to Geatland."

I love that "preen on the waves".

[kwassa]

5. Washington Post panned it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/15/AR2007111502465.html

Surface Treatment
The Technology That Makes 'Beowulf' Impressive Also Saps It of Emotion

By Stephen Hunter
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 16, 2007; Page C01

In "Beowulf," director Robert Zemeckis uses a technique called "motion capture" to conjure fantastical things, angles into action and sweeping vistas to stun your eyes and take your breath away. But what he hasn't mastered and what the technique can't do is this: emotion capture.

The nuance of the dilated nostril, the licked lip, the involuntary swallow, the unwilled tear -- all gone. Is that a loss? Hard to say.

(jump)

At the film's end, you wonder: Is it anything?

Or is it just another stupid human trick?

I say the story works, but I wish they'd teach these avatars to act.

[FloridaJudy]

7. Sounds kinda weird

Going through all that trouble to make avatars that look almost exactly like the actors they're modeled on. Why not just use real actors in the first place? Unless you're portraying a character like Gollum - in which case no human fits the part regardless of how much makeup is applied. But for Viking warriors all you need is a scootch of the air-brush.

I'm a huge Neil Gaiman fan, but I might give this one a miss.

[NewJeffCT]

9. Using the avatars allows them to do a lot of things

in terms of action sequences that are normally either very difficult and/or dangerous to do in real life, or downright impossible.