Continuing the series on upcoming movies that have sparked some interest on my part, we move past 1-18-08 to another that a lot of people probably haven’t heard of–and if you have, you’ve probably been following it for a while.
Beowulf.
If you missed it in high school or college English class somewhere, Beowulf is, according to the ever-reliable Wikipedia, “an Old English heroic epic poem…notable for its length… As the single major surviving work of Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry, the work — in spite of dealing primarily with Scandinavian matters — has risen to such prominence that it has become ‘England’s national epic.’” A brief description of the poem is also included: “Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, battles three antagonists: Grendel, who is destroying Heorot and its inhabitants in Denmark, Grendel’s mother, and later in life (after he is King) a dragon. He is mortally wounded in the final battle, and after his death is buried in a barrow by his retainers.”
I remember reading Beowulf in AP English my senior year of high school. Though I could tell that it was a great story, I was too young to appreciate the forms and language of the poem, and that fact unfortunately prevented a real enjoyment and understanding of it. Now, though I have not re-read it, being older and (hopefully) a bit wiser (or at least more well-rounded, culturally), I am looking forward both to the movie and to taking another stab at the original work in preparation for it.
Before I link to the trailer, there’s one other bit of information about this movie that sets it apart: it is done entirely by motion capture, a technology that has been used extensively in cinema, but perhaps not to this extent (except maybe with The Polar Express, though I think there might be some fine differences between what was done there and what’s happening with Beowulf). Anyway, think about characters of the quality of Gollum from the Lord of the Rings films in digital settings like in 300. The trailer alone is stunning, and when you see how closely the digital likenesses of the cast are to the original actors, you’ll probably be somewhat amazed. While it does have a somewhat “animated” look to it, it’s still very nice.
Add to all that the fact that the adaptation comes courtesy of Neil Gaiman, is directed by Robert Zemeckis, and stars Anthony Hopkins, Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich, Brendan Gleeson, Ray Winstone, and Robin Wright Penn, Beowulf is another one for my list.
As far as motion capture goes, don’t forget Monster House which was a big improvement over Polar Express, but still a little lifeless.
Beowulf looks interesting, but I’m really not sure why they would animate it. Certainly the quality looks incredible, but animation for animation’s sake is rarely, if ever, works out (Final Fantasy…). I’m on the edge for this one, I found the book somewhat dry but the story itself was reasonable epic and should make for a good movie. But the director needs to prove he knows what he’s doing by mocapping everything instead of filming it. I hope he manages to stay out of the Uncanny Valley with it as well, hopefully enough is being keyframed to bring the characters to life.
I saw this trailer before reading your little blog post as well. I do not lie when I say I saw half the trailer before I realized it was all graphically rendered. I was blown away.