Beowulf (2007)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2007
	Director: Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future 1-3, Cast Away, Contact)
	Actors: Ray Winstone (Indiana Jones 4), Crispin Glover (Willard, Charlie's Angels 1-2), Robin Wright Penn (The Congress, Forrest Gump), Angelina Jolie (Lara Croft 1-2, Wanted), Anthony Hopkins (The Silence of the Lambs, Fracture)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Fantasy, Animation, Epic
	Conditions of visioning: 06.10.2015, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: The kingdom of King Hrothgar (Hopkins) is threatened by his shame Grendel (Glover), until the hero Beowulf (Winstone) comes to the rescue.
Review: After his positive experience on The Polar Express, Robert Zemeckis pushed even further the at-that-time young concept of motion capture, two years before Avatar made it what it is nowadays. And I found that he really nailed it with that movie, better than with the previous one or the following A Christmas Carol. It seems to me that this heroic fantasy tale was the perfect topic for such an adaptation. The Epic scale of the story told (the legends of Grendel and Beowuf clashing) make for a grand spectacle, also superbly illustrated by Alan Silvestri's soundtrack. I remember that when I first saw Beowulf, it took me fifteen minutes to realize that it was not live action but motion capture and CGI characters. I then rewinded to watch the whole thing again with this new information in mind, and right after the movie I watched all available documentaries on the Blu-ray to learn about the making of this incredible visual experience. It is only too bad I never saw it in 3D, for which many in-your-face effects were designed. There are however some drawback to the technical process: the animation of the horses for example is far too rigid while the dragon, an imaginary creature for which we don't have a reference, looks more believable. And it is known that the most difficult things to reproduce in CGI are photo-realistic living beings. This is why Pixar keep on using toys and other inanimate objects in their movies. Another example is the face of the actors, which texture was rendered quite impressively and which motion was also very well captured, but in which the eyes often seem to wander in the wrong direction. Those "details" were mastered two years later by James Cameron and his crew, owing not a little to Zemeckis' experimentation. Steven Spielberg's The Adventure of Tintin also owes a lot to those first attempts at photo-realism. But enough of those technicalities: I liked the music, the legend, the story, the characters, the actors' play (the usual choice of Crispin Glover for the torture mind, and Angelina Jolie as Grendel's Mother, waw) and the look of the movie. An excellent adaptation. I fear to watch the 1999 Beowulf with Christophe Lambert and make a comparison.
Rating: 7 /10