3D is almost back in style.
It used to be a gimmick to lure people back to the cinema after the advent of television. A bit like cinemascope and smellovision. But now it is back. Probably to lure people back to the cinema after the advent of home theatre. And Beo-Wulf was my first taste of it in a non-I-Max cinema.
Unfortunately, Beo-Wulf is actually quite dull. It got off to a rocky start when the sound track was out of synch with the images. To be honest, I actually thought it might have been (badly) dubbed from the original "Danish", but then it became apparent that the naked King was in fact Anthony Hopkins, so that wasn't to blame. However, even when the soundtrack was sorted out about 20 minutes later, things didn't really get better.
Sure, the action sequences were quite nifty. But the interminable non-action sequences were like watching 3D paint dry. Beo-Wulf leant himself to the most amusing scene where he battled the hideous Grendel in his birthday suit (to face the monster on its own terms) and the "camera angles" used to obscure his "manliness" were inventive, if bordering on the ridiculous after the first 5 seconds of combat. The fact the naked torso of Beo-Wulf got a lot more screentime than the naked outline of stunning Angelina Jolie as the nameless demoness made one wonder who the target audience for the film was. Most of the characters were actually deathly dull (for example, the Queen was sour, depressing and flavourless for most of the film, and it got worse when she sang) and the two and a bit hour running time could definitely have used some trimming.
And we didn't even get to keep the 3D glasses at the end of the film either, even though we paid for the priviledge of wearing them.
Verdict: Beo-Wulf made 3D images two dimensional - or perhaps even one dimensional. Fractions would just be cruel...
3 comments:
On a 300 based scale of derangement I'd give Beowulf three madman barking at the moon barks out of five, mainly or technical achievement.
The nudity hiding was very Austin Powers, and I actually forgot it was in 3-D for a while.
Okay, you put it in quotes, but this is the second time I've seen "Danish" given as the original language of Beowulf. Beowulf the poem is in English, just 1,000-year-old English (yes, I'm an Old-English pedant ;-)
As for the film, I figured it sounded pants (or lack of?) and nothing I've seen since has convinced me it's worth seeing - the 3D gimmick being more like a nail in the coffin. Even Neil Gaiman wasn't enough to make it appeal - he's done crap hack work before and will probably do some again.
See Beowulf & Grendel, starring that guy from 300, even though it's stars anything from 300. It makes up for having precious little special effects by being intelligent, well-written and well-acted.
HI Andrew
I probably should have included the world "original" in the quotation marks too as, even though I can't spell Beowulf, I meant that, as it was set in Denmark, they probably were all speaking Danish (though this could be a good old "everyone speaks English" Sci Fi kind of story I suppose...) *lol*
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