I guess old-fangled human actors are okayâalways using their eyeballs and faces to communicate emotions and stuff (so pretentious). But what would be really great is if you could use a camera to film human actors, and then take a computer and scribble on the footage until the humans look like expressionless, waxy, reanimated corpses! Wake up, Louisa May Alcottâitâs called the 21st century (nice bonnet). And speaking of modernity: Yeah, Iâm kind of into Anglo-Saxon heroic epics, but you know what would really jazz that shit up? BOOBZ. Hella boobz. Plus, have you heard about these new individually wrapped prunes? Theyâre totally changing the way I eat prunes. Jesus Christ, I love the future.
Beowulf, Robert Zemeckisâs retardedly modern, 3-D, motion-capture reworking of Ye Olde English yarn, uses technology to murder the shit out of entertainment. Zemeckis takes real actorsâfancy, expensive actorsâand pays them to act, and then covers them up with dead-in-the-face computerized bullshit. Because itâs the future, or something. Grendel is slightly terrifying. A scene involving sea monsters rocked my ass off. Beowulf would be a perfectly enjoyable, corny, exciting, dumb action movie if it werenât for the criminally unnecessary Madame Tussaud makeunder. Bullshit, I say.
It all starts, predictably, in the mead hall. King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) rolls up on a litter, drunk and belchy and draped in a half toga. His smooth, CGI buttocks sway and waggle like white hams. Then, just in case you didnât notice how fabulously Dionysian he is, he hollers, âLetâs hand out some treasuuuuuuure!!!â and pelts his drunken warriors with gold. Then they perform a medieval rap.
Up on a mountain somewhere, a Garbage Pail Kid named Grendel (Crispin Glover) has no skin, very sensitive ears, and major beef with Hrothgar: the Old English equivalent of âCAN YOU GODDAMN KIDS PLEASE KEEP IT DOWN!?â He hates the rapping. He kills everyone.
Eventually, Beowulf shows up (you know itâs him because he never stops yelling, âI am BEOWULF!â) and things get homoerotic: âThere have been many brave men who have come to taste my lordâs mead.â A bit of sensual chain-mail unbuckling later, and Beowulf is nakedâI mean fully nude, for no reason, in front of the queenâand fights Grendel with his bare hands. John Malkovich contributes a sarcastic slow clap. Then Angelina Jolieâs golden boobz come out of a lake. Then Beowulf bones her. Somewhere, your college English professor gnaws his own face off, and Robert Zemeckis unwraps a single, sticky, delicious prune.
editor@thestranger.com