I would have preferred if Zemeckis had remained a little more faithful...
I liked "Beowulf" well enough and thought it was a more-than-passable animated film. It wasn´t nearly as epic as it could have been and I feel the film would have been more interesting had they kept to the source material. However, the filmmakers intended to give depth to the story by purporting that Beowulf did not slay Grendel´s mother, but instead sired the demon that ultimately led to Beowulf´s death. These changes by scribe Roger Avary also implicated that Hrothgar is the father of Grendel. All of this ´who slept with who´ and ´who is the father of who´ business diluted the true nature of the original poem and lessened the epic feel that the animated adaptation of Beowulf could have had. I didn´t like the story changes presented in the film, but I enjoyed the look of the picture and considering the story was half faithful to the original poem, there was enough of the original poem in the film to keep me interested.
Video:
"Beowulf" is an incredible looking animated film and this digital-to-digital conversion looks absolutely stunning on DVD. Through an upconvert player, "Beowulf" could be easily passed as being true high definition with its incredibly detailed textures and striking visuals. Clothing, stonework, wood and water all exhibit strong granular detailing and I must admit that I cannot wait to see how this film looks on HD-DVD, because it impressed the hell out of me on DVD. Colors were a little more muted than I had expected. I seem to remember stronger coloring in the trailer, but Zemeckis and company have chosen to give the film a ´historic´ hue with rich, but muted colors that are more true to the Bronze Age than the Toy Story Age. Blues, reds and golds do stand out at times, but I wasn´t expecting the palette presented in the final product. Black levels were strong and the film showed very good shadow detail during the dark fight scenes with Grendel. There is also an amount of artificial grain injected into the film to help hide the fact it is an animated picture. The film is presented in an anamorphic 2.35:1 aspect ratio and is clean and completely free of any flaws that I could spot.
Sound:
Paramount provides "Beowulf" with English, French and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks. The Dolby Digital mix is both aggressive and enveloping. Even during the calmest moments in the film, there are plenty of ambient sounds to be heard. The front channels present the metallic clanging of chains and swords and the gentle sound of wind and water. The .1 LFE channel exhibits very strong bass and the rear surrounds are used effectively throughout the film. Pixar has created a few absolutely stunning sounding films, but Zemeckis is certainly giving them a run for their money with this creation. The musical score by veteran composer Alan Silvestri is strong and powerfully emanates from all six channels. Dialogue is nicely contained in the center channel for much of the film, but does present directional conversations between the left and right speakers as well. It works to nice effect and showcases how cleanly the film pans between channels and uses direction to great effect.
Extras:
The Director´s Cut of "Beowulf" contains a little more gore than the theatrical release, but also a few nice supplements. The first page of the "Special Features" menu contains four featurettes pertaining to the film. The first, A Hero´s Journey: The Making of Beowulf (23:55) gives a very good look at how the actors worked with technology to bring the motion-captured film to life. It is an honest look and Robert Zemeckis states right away that he doesn´t want to remake the poem, but inject a new vision of the story complete with drinking, fighting and fornicating. You quickly find out that Ray Winstone is the actor who looks the least like his character and learn a lot of good information about the film. The Beasts of Burden: Designing the Creatures of Beowulf (6:55) is shorter, but gives a nice look at the artwork and designs for the film´s beasties. The Origins of Beowulf (5:12) looks at the historical beginnings of the film and feels far more promotional than the first two featurettes. The final supplement on the front page, Creating the Ultimate Beowulf (1:59) is a slick and promotional mention of how Zemeckis wanted to create a bigger and more modern animated adaptation of the novel.
The second page of features is far shorter and far less impressive than what is contained on the first menu page. The first of three features is The Art of Beowulf (5:24). This short combines video snippets from the actual film and more talking-heads interviews with the director, producer and production designer and shows artwork and talks about how they wanted to create the ´ultimate´ look for the film. This was another decent little making-of vignette, but couldn´t compare to the first and longest feature. The collection of six Deleted Scenes (10:09) are not completed in animation and very rough animatics. They are decent enough to view and fleshes out some of the characters in the film. The Theatrical Trailer and some Previews are also included.
Closing Comments:
Robert Zemeckis didn´t set out to faithfully recreate the very old poem in which his latest animated film is based. I would have preferred if Zemeckis had remained a little more faithful and didn´t particularly think the focus on sexual activity with Angelina Jolie´s animated doppelganger did much to advance the storyline or add any depth to the story of "Beowulf." With an animated film, I wanted some more larger-than-life battles and not bedroom talk. But I digress and did find "Beowulf" was entertaining enough to warrant a viewing or two. While the film wasn´t as impressive in story as I had hoped, it was a visual tour-de-force and showed what motion capture computer imagery is capable of. The DVD showcases the incredible visuals and contains a lively and strong soundtrack and some nice supplements. This is a nice package for a film that could have been more, but presents a different take on the epic poem Beowulf.
Video:
"Beowulf" is an incredible looking animated film and this digital-to-digital conversion looks absolutely stunning on DVD. Through an upconvert player, "Beowulf" could be easily passed as being true high definition with its incredibly detailed textures and striking visuals. Clothing, stonework, wood and water all exhibit strong granular detailing and I must admit that I cannot wait to see how this film looks on HD-DVD, because it impressed the hell out of me on DVD. Colors were a little more muted than I had expected. I seem to remember stronger coloring in the trailer, but Zemeckis and company have chosen to give the film a ´historic´ hue with rich, but muted colors that are more true to the Bronze Age than the Toy Story Age. Blues, reds and golds do stand out at times, but I wasn´t expecting the palette presented in the final product. Black levels were strong and the film showed very good shadow detail during the dark fight scenes with Grendel. There is also an amount of artificial grain injected into the film to help hide the fact it is an animated picture. The film is presented in an anamorphic 2.35:1 aspect ratio and is clean and completely free of any flaws that I could spot.
Sound:
Paramount provides "Beowulf" with English, French and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks. The Dolby Digital mix is both aggressive and enveloping. Even during the calmest moments in the film, there are plenty of ambient sounds to be heard. The front channels present the metallic clanging of chains and swords and the gentle sound of wind and water. The .1 LFE channel exhibits very strong bass and the rear surrounds are used effectively throughout the film. Pixar has created a few absolutely stunning sounding films, but Zemeckis is certainly giving them a run for their money with this creation. The musical score by veteran composer Alan Silvestri is strong and powerfully emanates from all six channels. Dialogue is nicely contained in the center channel for much of the film, but does present directional conversations between the left and right speakers as well. It works to nice effect and showcases how cleanly the film pans between channels and uses direction to great effect.
Extras:
The Director´s Cut of "Beowulf" contains a little more gore than the theatrical release, but also a few nice supplements. The first page of the "Special Features" menu contains four featurettes pertaining to the film. The first, A Hero´s Journey: The Making of Beowulf (23:55) gives a very good look at how the actors worked with technology to bring the motion-captured film to life. It is an honest look and Robert Zemeckis states right away that he doesn´t want to remake the poem, but inject a new vision of the story complete with drinking, fighting and fornicating. You quickly find out that Ray Winstone is the actor who looks the least like his character and learn a lot of good information about the film. The Beasts of Burden: Designing the Creatures of Beowulf (6:55) is shorter, but gives a nice look at the artwork and designs for the film´s beasties. The Origins of Beowulf (5:12) looks at the historical beginnings of the film and feels far more promotional than the first two featurettes. The final supplement on the front page, Creating the Ultimate Beowulf (1:59) is a slick and promotional mention of how Zemeckis wanted to create a bigger and more modern animated adaptation of the novel.
The second page of features is far shorter and far less impressive than what is contained on the first menu page. The first of three features is The Art of Beowulf (5:24). This short combines video snippets from the actual film and more talking-heads interviews with the director, producer and production designer and shows artwork and talks about how they wanted to create the ´ultimate´ look for the film. This was another decent little making-of vignette, but couldn´t compare to the first and longest feature. The collection of six Deleted Scenes (10:09) are not completed in animation and very rough animatics. They are decent enough to view and fleshes out some of the characters in the film. The Theatrical Trailer and some Previews are also included.
Closing Comments:
Robert Zemeckis didn´t set out to faithfully recreate the very old poem in which his latest animated film is based. I would have preferred if Zemeckis had remained a little more faithful and didn´t particularly think the focus on sexual activity with Angelina Jolie´s animated doppelganger did much to advance the storyline or add any depth to the story of "Beowulf." With an animated film, I wanted some more larger-than-life battles and not bedroom talk. But I digress and did find "Beowulf" was entertaining enough to warrant a viewing or two. While the film wasn´t as impressive in story as I had hoped, it was a visual tour-de-force and showed what motion capture computer imagery is capable of. The DVD showcases the incredible visuals and contains a lively and strong soundtrack and some nice supplements. This is a nice package for a film that could have been more, but presents a different take on the epic poem Beowulf.
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[release]22964[/release]