Reviewed by Max Foizey.

Release Date: November 16, 2007
Directed By: Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Angelina Jolie
Rating: PG-13

Filming "Beowulf" was something of a Hollywood in-joke ("My next project is "Beowulf."  *cue groans*), so it's a good thing Neil Gaiman didn't know that when he started to write an adaptation for his friend Roger Avary to direct.

Avary, an Oscar winner for co-writing "Pulp Fiction," was keen to direct many years ago but the project fell through, and it seemed "Beowulf" would continue to live in Hollywood infamy as the story nobody should bother making. (For further evidence, see 1999's Christopher Lambert version.)

The epic poem is important if only because it is the oldest surviving piece of literature in our language. Other than that, it's honestly quite boring. Beowulf agrees to help a Danish mead hall under attack from a monster called Grendel, fights and kills said monster. Turns out he's gotta kill Grendel's momma too, so he does. Later on Beowulf is king and fights a dragon, who kills him. There you go. Our hero is one-dimensional, and so is most of what transpires.

In the film, Grendel is revealed to be a misunderstood creature, and Beowulf is a braggart who tells tall tales even his own men doubt. When Beowulf goes off to kill Grendel's mother, it's for a king who is guarding a secret...of a mistake Beowulf himself may make.

And so, Gaiman and Avary have turned the oldest story in our language into a riff on "Fatal Attraction." And it works! After all, what is more human than lust and regret? Speaking of lust, Angelina Jolie may be the best representation of temptation I've ever seen on film. You understand Beowulf's confusion as he goes into a cave to kill a monster's mother, and finds Jolie waiting for him.

But the buzz around this film is the WAY it is made, not the story it is telling. ( A shame, that.) Director Robert Zemeckis has become obsessed with performance capture technology, in which the actors on set are captured digitally and manipulated by computers into what we see on screen, after making "The Polar Express" in 2004.

The tech was wonky then, with the characters famously sporting DEAD DOLL EYES which distracted audiences from anything except the characters' DEAD DOLL EYES. I enjoyed 2006's motion capture film "Monster House" very much, as it showed not only how the tech has grown, but how a clever script was still more important that special effects any day.

The acting in "Beowulf" is mostly overshadowed by the technique of 'performance capture,' but casting Crispin Glover as Grendel was a gamble that paid off thanks to Glover's manic energy. I'm glad he and director Zemeckis have buried the hatchet.

Ray Winstone, so good in "The Departed," is almost unrecognizable as our hero, which I suppose is one of the benefits of using this technology. You can give your hero six pack abs while they hang out on set drinking a six pack.

John Malkovich is outstanding as Unferth, who has his doubts about Beowulf's ability to take down Grendel, but comes around to believing in Beowulf just as he starts believing in this new 'Roman God' Christ Jesus.

Alison Lohman is gorgeous whether animated or not, but Robin Wright Penn's Queen Wealtheow looks like a cartoon the whole time, never once a hint of a real person showing through. The same cannot be said however, of Anthony Hopkins' King Hrothgar. The true success of this project, I believe, is forgetting Hrothgar isn't really there while you're watching him.

Claims have been made about "Beowulf" being the future of filmmaking, and I think there is a bit of jumping the gun going on. Do I think there will be more films that use this technology? Yes. Do I think the tech is photo-realistic? No. Are there improvements to be made? Yes. Big ones.

What Zemeckis has done with "Beowulf" is an achievement, but it will seem quaint in ten years when a more exciting filmmaker uses even better motion capture tech to tell a truly exciting story. This is not that film.

Still, there is plenty to recommend here for those of you who love swords, sorcery, or Angelina Jolie. Especially if you can get to the theatre to see it in IMAX 3D, which is how I saw it.

No doubt the WOW FACTOR will wear off once you're watching this on your television. At least then you'll be able to focus on the story, in which Avary and Gaiman crafted something a lot more clever than they needed to. We should thank them for it.

In addition to hosting 'Max on Movies' on Sunday nights at 7pm on 97.1 FM Talk, Max appears weekly on the Dave Glover Show Fridays at 5pm. A member of the Saint Louis Gateway Film Critics Association, Max has written about film and theatre for various print and Web media, and appeared as guest critic on various nationally syndicated radio shows. Max lives in Missouri and is a diehard Miami Dolphins fan. Max first became familiar with the name Grendel through comic books by Matt Wagner. Just a tad removed from epic Olde English prose poetry, but art nonetheless.