Just imagine all the lads (and probably a lot of lassies too!) scouring the internet for 3-D nekkid pics of Angeline Jolie!

It is crap. Watched it on Sunday. Gaiman is a genius and everything, but I swear he had diarrhea or something when he wrote the screenplay for this one.

Beowulf was an asshole

I Know, Really! Beowulf is all "I'm a manly man-hero and I'm gonna sstick my tinsy little nose in where it doesn't belong, m'kay? and help out the poor village peoples even though no one asked, cause I'm a big ol bigot, and I'm gonna do it all even though I'm not from this country, eww, it's so backward here, and oh look, darnit! there are eelsss ALL over my tunic 'cause my boat ssank and I had to ssswim ashore, Look at my hair!! Oh, no it's okay, I'm sstill Fabulouss.

Really B, get over yourself!

Oh, god, MonkeyButter made me laugh. In the current argot, I LOLed.

BP, now I just want to see it to spot the mead flagons hiding his nasty bits. Mmmmmmm, mead flagons!

Well, to be fair, Grendel did like to barge in and eat the local thanes, but come on, they probably deserved it. We read some translation of Beowulf in my high school English class, but we also read Grendel. (much better, IMO).

muddgirl I really liked Gardner's Grendel also.

Yeah, but at least they didn't add a silly vamp sub-plot in the original. I remember watching the movie and thinking, "This all seems like a very modern plot, at least I would have remembered such an old story who had such a strong female character, the seduction would have been surely been countless essay questions!" Oh right, they added that in. Which also explains why the ending fell so flat and seemed so ridiculous.

I enjoyed studying Beowulf, but that may be partly because we got to use the Seamus Heaney translation, which is a pleasure to read and has the Old English text running alongside the modern one. My father had to study it in the original, so whenever I'd talk to him about it he'd shout, "Hwæt wē Gār-Dena" (the opening half-line, and the only one he could remember), sending me into fits of laughter.

I'm sorry the movie sucks. I was looking forward to it.

I love double translations like that! I had a really mean high school English teacher. When we were reading Hamlet I had the modern/old English edition ... and it really helped clear up some passages I would have probably just skimmed over. It really made it a delight to read. Especially following along with Branagth's Hamlet.

Then, on the first day of class, she made us turn in all our books. She held mine up and declared I was "cheating" with a "Cliff Notes" version. She also said that no one can read a book without making notes in it (which I did not do). She gave me a C. The overachieving little twit next to me copiously underlined and provided definitions to words. I explained I didn't have to do it since the book already did it for me. No avail.

Earlier this year I was reading Pynchon's Against the Day and used the Pynchon Wiki and a blog to follow along. I guess I am still a failure at reading English literature.

It is crap. Watched it on Sunday. Gaiman is a genius and everything, but I swear he had diarrhea or something when he wrote the screenplay for this one.

There was a time when I would have agreed with the genius label, most of Sandman was great, but IMHO he has been pretty spotty lately. He tends to repeat himself a little too much for my taste.

As far as the movie, I have the same problem with this as The Polar Express, not the "Uncanny Valley" phenomenon, but rather the expressions seem so robotic. I personally think that mo-cap doesn't necessarily do animation any favors. The best animation understands that this stuff is not real, and they can never make it real, so they do well judged exaggerations of movement and expressions.

Oooh, elizard, thank you for pointing out that translation! I'm working on this which I found from an AskMe question and I'm having trouble finding The Wanderer or Dream of the Rood at the library.

I was going to hold out and not read Beowolf again but I can justify it by saying I haven't read the Seamus Heaney version!

There was a 2005 movie called Beowulf and Grendel that a coworker and I really liked. It's got beautiful Icelandic scenery and very few special effects (Grendel is basically a big hulking guy, sort of like a Cro-Magnon survival), and nicely explores the problematic nature of Beowulf's quest and "heroism" in general. Beowulf doesn't have the full story at first, and the more he learns about the monster the less he wants to kill it, but slowly gets driven by events down a path he's ambivalent about, at best. Like I said, we really liked it, and aside from a little cheesy make-up for Grendel's mother at the end, was really beautiful to watch (its Rotten Tomatoes rating is way too low; I think folks just didn't know what to expect or something).

I would love to see that, mediareport.

geoff, gah - it makes one despair! I can only imagine what pips will have to say about that anecdote.

I saw the movie at the weekend, liked it. Yes, it's extremely silly in many many ways, but it's fun. Plenty of action, plenty of eye-candy, and some off-the-wall ideas.

It makes some pretty big changes to the story, but it does have all three confrontations (with Grendel, Mrs Grendel and the dragon) which I don't think any other movie version has tried.

The Hollywood formula is always to compress the action in time as much as possible, so advancing the plot several decades must have been a very hard sell.

The motion-capture animation isn't too bad. The movements are a bit too smooth and unnatural in the scenes with many people moving, but the close-ups on faces seem very realistic. (Well, the horses' movements are pretty terrible, but they probably have trouble putting them into the motion-capture suits).

Besides, it's the action scenes you're going for, and they're all pretty much animated in any movie these days.

I only saw it at the local cinema. If you can though I'd try to make it out to an IMAX: it would be fantastic on a really big screen. Absolutely no point in waiting for the DVD.

Also seconding the Seamus Heaney translation of the poem (though my copy only has a couple of pages of the Anglo-Saxon text). Manages the tough job of keeping it exciting and lucid at once.

Reasons I'm not seeing it:
1. Uncanny valley issues.
2. Dumb modern changes to story.
3. Angelina Jolie's high heels (Caution: article includes photo captioned "'Angelina Jolie's ass' in Beowulf.")

help out the poor village peoples even though no one asked

The Village People can help themselves.
≡ Click to see image ≡

Wow. What an album cover.

p.s. I hate motion capture movies. The technology isn't ready.

I'll second the 2005 Sturla Gunnarsson film Beolwulf and Grendel, with Sarah Polley, Gerard Butler, and Ingvar E. Sigurdsson. I think this is the second time I've mentioned it here. Beowulf is more of an ass than an asshole here, but the film is definitely totally sympathetic to Grendel (and not at all sympathetic to the nature of humans.)

I can't help but wonder if it was inspired by John Gardner's novel Grendel.

ASSHOLE 3-D.

Now with CGI!

Third for Beolwulf and Grendel.

Put me down in the fairly small "liked it" column. I can't imagine seeing it in not-3D though or to some degree not-IMAX, so take that as you will.

The 3D is spectacular. It's like you're watching little (or giant) dioramas at times; everything has depth, not just the gimmicky spear or sword being thrust your way. Admittedly, the movie coulda just been the camera floating above rock beaches and frosted woods and I woulda been happy. And the animation/art itself is passable. Yeah, they got the horses wrong (surprising considering the video game industry figured this out years ago), and the creature design is a bit laughable (I was no fan of the bloody pulp of muppet that was Grendel), but overall it worked well.

For a spectacle movie, the story is interesting enough and has some depth that's likely to be overlooked. It makes obvious some of the more subtle themes of the source material and plays around with others in some neat even if straightforward ways. Beowulf isn't necessarily an asshole but he's a lot of other less than desirable things; when he gets the girl, not even he is very thrilled about it. Also, I think not liking it because it doesn't live up to the original is a bit silly in this case.

It's flawed, it's goofy, but it's a lot better than Transformers.

Mark Kermode reviewed it on his Simon Mayo guest spot/podcast on Friday:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/kermode/

One word summary: meh.

As an aside, I'm not sure what to say about all the "Beowulf in the poem was an unpleasant and unsympathetic character" stuff.

Offhand, I can't think of any protagonist of an ancient epic that that wouldn't apply to.

Achilles: sulks in his tent because he's not getting a big enough share of the loot, then goes on a killing spree.

Odysseus: with Telemachus kills not only the suitors but 12 of his households maids for serving them.

Arjuna: "Shame I've gotta kill all my old buddies, but that's Dharma for you".

Aeneas: Drives Dido to suicide, lands in Italy and promptly starts a bunch of wars.

Ancient epics just don't have protagonists that are sympathetic, merciful or moral exemplars by modern standards.

Ancient epics just don't have protagonists that are sympathetic, merciful or moral exemplars by modern standards.

I dunno. On the Seamus Heaney theme, check out his translation of the ancient Irish poem Sweeney Astray. Sweeney was a pretty cool king. Err, bird. Whatever.

On the other hand, I'm still pissed off over the fact that the Tain, the greatest Irish ancient epic, is a battle fought over a cow. A freakin' damn bull. Then again, recent research has traced an increase in human aggression, war and social attitudes of "possession" back to the beginning of herding and keeping "livestock," which wasn't all that long ago.