Beowulf (Director's Cut) (DVD)

I hate it when well-made featurettes on DVDs make me change my mind, but that is the fate someone with an open mind must live with. For the longest time I have spat in the face of motion-capture animation, not fully understanding why a filmmaker would find it to be a viable option and considering Robert Zemeckis is really the only filmmaker that has truly embraced the process I guess it is still up for debate as to whether it actually is a viable option. However, I must say, as cool as seeing Beowulf in 3-D was (even if I had problems with the film) it is far more enjoyable and less of a hassle to watch it in the comfort of your own home without the annoying glasses.

First off, this is the unrated version of the film that I am reviewing and it is approximately a minute longer than the theatrical version that you saw, and from what I can tell the only real "unrated" footage comes in during the first Grendel attack in which you see him ripping apart folks and even ripping one gentleman in half and drinking the blood as it drains from his upper torso (that is what the screen capture above is showing). So to say the "unrated" version is any better than the theatrical is a little silly, but it is sort of cool to see the additional violence in this obviously more adult animated film.

The other bonus are the special features, which are all quite good and really do give you a better idea of what the whole motion-capture animation process really is all about and why it may be a real benefit to filmmakers in the future. Of course the faces still look terrible and there is no real weight to objects in this weird little mo-cap world, but in terms of feature filmmaking this style of movie making really shows some advancement.

First off, you can turn a tubby Ray Winstone into a svelte Scandinavian warrior or even a dragon (yup, that's Winstone as the dragon at the end of the film). Secondly, and this is what I particularly keyed onto, you can move the camera anywhere inside this world once it is caught on film. Each actor has little dots that the camera captures during the filming and once you have it on film you have a complete 3-D world of which to move the camera around in, you aren't simply stuck with what you shot as the environments are all added later. This is the one key piece that made me think they may actually be onto something here. However, understanding that it costs approximately $1 million for every second of footage also makes me believe that it is a huge waste of money considering the creepy looking humans we see on screen.

The rest of the features focus on the design of the creatures, the makeup, the costumes, the artwork and so on. There are some deleted scenes that really were best left deleted as well as the trailers. Overall, the makers of this DVD subscribe to the less is more line of thinking and they succeed as none of the features go on to long and give out an impressive amount of information.

As far as recommending you buy this film that is a hard thing to judge. While I found the film to be entertaining I am not sure I will ever revisit it again. The animation is still too weird looking for me to really enjoy it too much. I look at the characters and immediately begin to focus on the flaws rather than paying attention to the story, this isn't something you should do, at least not if you are watching something that you would consider any good. Perhaps Zemeckis' third try with A Christmas Carol will win me over as Beowulf was an obvious improvement over The Polar Express. We will just have to wait and see.