This is not your 10th-grade English teacher’s “Beowulf.”
The highest — and driest — bit of early Western civilization to survive the ages is that pre-medieval Germanic epic poem in an indecipherable old English dialect that has been giving high schoolers headaches since long before the iPod.
But now, courtesy of director Robert Zemeckis (“Contact,” “Polar Express”) and the “motion-capture” technique that converts actors’ live-action movements into digital animation, here’s a third-millennial take on a 6th-century Scandinavian monster mash.
The eye-popping if ultimately hollow spectacle not only gives the title’s legendary dragon-slayer abs ofsteel and a macho swagger worthy of a WWE star. It’s available in fabulous-looking, state-of-the-art 3-D!
(Check your local listings to see it at one of the nearly 1,000 digital 3-D screens and some 90 IMAX theaters showing it this way nationwide.)
Yes, indeed, there is something rotten in Denmark.
It’s a giant, oozing, mutant killing machine named Grendel (voiced and “motioned” by Crispin Glover).
If the idea of Grendel’s Viking-tossing, head-munching antics and other imaginatively explicit CGI action turn you on, then you should definitely see today’s heightened slice of historical fantasy; and, you must catch it in 3-D. But if it’s gripping storytelling and identifiably realistic characters that matter — those things that translate neat imagery into transporting experience — the still distancing texture of the technology and the comic book-style screenplay by Roger Avary (“Pulp Fiction”) and graphic novelist Neil Gaiman (“The Sandman”) don’t fully cut it.
Campy pagan adventurism and retro cartoon sexism are the orders of the day as the blond swashbuckler Beowulf (“Sexy Beast’s” Ray Winstone) comes to the rescue of the plagued domain of the aging, fat and — eek! — disturbingly unclothed local King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins). After peeving off his scheming future rival for the throne Unferth (John Malkovich) and turning on the nubile queen Wealthow (Robin Wright Penn) with his bulging body parts, our superhero goes after Grendel.
But the mission to rid the realm of supernatural demons won’t be as easy as planned.
Unfortunately, Grendel’s mommy survives as an evil sea creature temptress with feet shaped like Jimmy Choo stilettos and an itch to procreate another mutant off the smitten Beowulf. How can he resist Mom? She looks and sounds exactly like a very naked Angelina Jolie, whose physical perfection already makes the flesh-and-blood actress seem like a special effect.
Come to think of it, teenage boys may not care about going to the multiplex for the 3-D after all. They will be frantically pushing their pause buttons at home when “Beowulf” comes out on DVD.
‘Beowulf’
***
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Ray Winstone, Crispin Glover, Angelina Jolie
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence including disturbing images, some sexual material and nudity
Running time: 113 minutes
