DVD reviews: Beowulf (Two-Disc Special Edition) – 70

Beowulf was not a critical success, with many reviewers citing its lack of humanity as a flaw.

I couldn’t disagree more; I felt so much compassion that I nearly wet my pants crying. Twice.

This is really quite an incredible film. The adaptation of an 8th century epic poem (actually, the first thing ever written in the English language), Beowulf uses performance capture animation. This is the complicated technique of recording human actors and using that information to animate digital character models in 3D. We first saw this technology in the kiddie Christmas film The Polar Express. Beowulf is rather more grown-up and doesn’t feature Santa, a train or dancing elves. Really bloody and gory, as the mediaeval tale goes, King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) and his cursed kingdom are terrorised by the monster Grendel when the sun goes down. Enter muscular Beowulf, who comes all the way from Norway on his Viking ship to slay the beast. Along the way he enrages the beast’s sexy serpentine mama (Angelina Jolie) and so the curse continues.

Hundreds of hours of labour go into making any film, but this one is especially complex. The actors were rigged with sensors and filmed using transparent props in a room rigged with 250 infrared cameras. This was so that the essence of the actors could be captured and then animated into a body appropriate to the character. For example, Ray Winstone, who plays Beowulf, is actually an overweight middle-aged bloke, whereas the animated Beowulf is a powerful, rippling hunk of brawn. However, his voice and movements are the actor’s. The result is an incredibly lifelike animation.

Visually, this is a masterpiece and an incredible amount of artistry has gone into creating it. I would love to have seen the 3D version. The fight scenes are intense and tremendously choreographed, and there are some amazing special effects in the underwater scenes. The 5.1 surround audio is almost as spectacular, with the most delicate of nuances captured. The soundtrack ranges between folk music, epic instrumental pieces and the sounds of screaming demons. It’s brilliant, as is this movie.

Jeska Innes