Beowulf

BEOWULF (2007) - Nov. 14, 2007
About a warrior who comes to a town to fight the monster that has been plaguing them, this was sporadically very engaging, but a failure for the most part. A couple of the action scenes, at the beginning and then the end of the movie, were very well done and quite exciting. But for the most part the film falls flat. It isn't really about anything, and aside from Beowulf himself (and a memorable character played by John Malkovich) none of the characters were very well developed or interesting. The movie just sort of goes from one random scene to the next. Then there's the animation. It works quite well whenever there's action on the screen, but once the characters actually start talking it completely falls apart. The technology has seemingly not improved at all since the Polar Express, as all the characters still have that off-putting, creepily zombie-like pallor. They look all wrong, and worse, they can't even properly convey a full range of emotions -- there are times where the voice work is very good, but it's clear that the limitations of this technology simply can't keep up with them. They're stiff. It's like the voice of Marlon Brando being superimposed onto Josh Hartnett's face (though in defense of Hartnett, even he is able to convey more emotion than these plasticy people-impostors). Blech. **