Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
:: Beowulf ::
by William the Bloody
In case you never read the folktale in English class:
Over 1,000 years ago in Denmark, there is a village which is beset upon by a vicious monster known as Grendel. He stands almost three men high and is extremely strong and violent. One night when the village is merry making in its great hall, Grendel bursts in screaming and kills nearly everyone. The hall is shut down, thought to draw forth the creature, and they believe their little village to be cursed forever. Then the hero known as Beowulf hears of this monster and sets sail for the village. When he lands upon the shore of the village he tells them of his intent to kill the beast plaguing them, and he and is men are given free reign to kill Grendel. They reopen the great hall with the intention of luring the beast to them, which they do. A massive fight ensues, not without human casualty, but Beowulf has the last when he rends Grendel's arm from its socket. Grendel flees back home where he dies from his injury in his mother's arms. Grendel's mother is enraged by the death of her son, and Beowulf may not be able to defeat her so easily...
The Good: Well, it's written by Neil Gaiman, and this is pretty much his area of expertise. Telling stories about folk tale gods and monsters, that is. It's what he does, and he does so as loyally as possible, presumably out of love for the original tales. I do have to say that this is in fact closest to the old story of all of the film versions I've seen, and I have seen more than one. This script does have a certain Gaiman-ness about it that someone familiar with his work such as myself, can clearly see, but that's neither here nor there. I found it interesting having recently read the short story collection "Fragile Things" which contains a story in which Shadow from Gaiman's novel American Gods must fight Grendel, and Gaiman used some of the same Grendel characteristics for this film version as in that story. For example, in the short story, Grendel is seen as a very large man with really big ears who is sensitive to loud noises. In the movie, it is Grendel's sensitivity to noise which causes him to go on a killing spree simply because all of the hubbub of a party is too much for his ear to bear. I found this an interesting thing to do because as I remember it, the folk story of Beowulf does not give any reason at all for Grendel's mass murder of villagers. I also found it to be a very Gaiman-esque twist to make Grendel's mother a beautiful daemon thing, and a seducer of men. Okay, now technical stuff. The animation was pretty smooth, and about in the same arena as say, the latest Xbox 360 adventure game. I was glad that they did not have any generic voice actors in this cartoon like Jim Cummings, Kath Soucci, Tress MacNeille, et cetera. Yes, they are very talented people, but I get sick of hearing them everywhere, and sometimes doing three characters each in one production. The music was lovely and it even had some good songs. The featured song "A Hero Comes Home" I found really suited the film, both in the context of the movie for a character to sing for party entertainment and as a production piece over the end credits. There is a lot of pretty graphic violence and nudity for something animated from the USA, but it was appropriate to the subject of the movie.
The Bad: Well, Grendel. I couldn't stand him, and I couldn't wait for him to die as quickly as possible. Frankly, I despised looking at him and listening to him. I found his character design to be overly grotesque and hideous that he made me want to throw up and his throbbing nearly external eardrum hurt me to look at it. He was voiced by Crispin Glover for some reason, though he could have just as easily been anyone so I don't know why they wasted the money on a celebrity. Almost everything Grendel said was incomprehensible that at first I thought it was gibberish, then maybe German, then I heard some English so I wasn't sure. The only things I understood for certain were his screams and "Beowulf." The computer animation quality wasn't as good as I'd hoped it would be. I remember watching the Final Fantasy movies and being impressed by them, but those are years old now, and Beowulf was only on par with them, not really improved in any way. I figured that the animation would have improved by leaps and bounds in that time period for feature film animation, so that was disappointing. The scene where Beowulf fights Grendel in the, well, nude is kind of off-putting, but again, very Gaiman-esque in its way. If you're wondering how can they choreograph a fight scene and still cover up Beowulf's junk from multiple angles, you'll get your answer.
Overall, it wasn't perfect, but it it wasn't necessarily bad, either. There are some pretty gruesome fights, witty bits of dialogue, and good characterization, but it all boils down to pretty much that folk story you had to read in high school once upon a time, and that is either something you're interested in seeing as a film or you're not. Me? Not bad. Not bad at all.
B+
