Robert Zemeckis's "Beowulf" has, I think, been grossly misunderstood. The popular consensus appears to be that it is another mo-cap failure, all exaggerated, adolescent, computer-generated violence with zero substance. While the film certainly has its flaws, the visual effects techniques employed to create it have apparently blinded many to its rather clever deconstruction of the Beowulf story.
Now, it's inarguable that the original poem is a treasured literary classic, but what some of the more "academic" reviews either don't seem to grasp or conveniently choose to ignore is that the poem is over a thousand years old and is an entirely different medium to the modern blockbuster; literature is an individual experience, interpreted through the prism of the reader's - or listener's, if hearing an oration - imagination while film is a defined, temporal experience intended for a mass audience. What works in one can be disastrous in another.
The key obstacle in adapting "Beowulf" is the narrative structure. The story is split between three battles: Grendel, Grendel's mother, and the Dragon. Classical three-act structure, you say? Not quite. There's a fifty year gap between the last two acts. Furthermore, Beowulf himself is a static character, an idealized hero without flaw. These present no real issue in poetic verse, but in a film that is expected to flow smoothly from narrative point A to narrative point B in two hours or less, a static protagonist will bore the audience and such an enormous time shift will seem unjustified.
Therefore, writers Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary strove to accomplish with their adaptation what any good adaptation ought to do -- find a new reason to tell this ancient tale. They asked questions: why won't Grendel attack Hrothgar? Because no one else actually saw what happened in the cave with Grendel's mother, what if what Beowulf recited isn't the truth? These questions led to a deconstruction of the original narrative where Beowulf is an unreliable narrator and he and the characters suffer from the all-too human traits of greed, pride, lust, and envy. Now, the long gap between the final acts is motivated through exploring Beowulf's regret at the decisions he's made in his life that now tie into the confrontation with the Dragon. The conceit is that this version is the "original" version of the story before it became what we now know in the poem.
The beauty of this conceit is that it makes the nature of storytelling itself one of the film's themes. Beowulf is presented as an exaggerating braggart and even an outright liar concerning his early exploits. After Beowulf is crowned and they perform his "song" decades later, the depiction of Grendel's disarming corresponds to the bare-handed version in the original poem and not the mechanically-assisted version we saw take place earlier in the film; the story has evolved to be bolder and more heroic than the reality. The implication is that this same change has happened to the rest of the story over time, the character's flaws were lost and he became the idealized hero of the poem. (This is also hinted at the film's treatment of Christianity as a rising religion among a rowdy pagan culture, closer to historical reality of the time the poem is set, while the poem of course portrays its heroes as good Christian men.)
The introduction of character flaws into the narrative provides room for character development and greater psychological reality over the course of the film narrative, but it also ties into the theme of storytelling and sets up the ambiguous ending, which I won't spoil here. Why do we tell the stories of heroes such as Beowulf? Why are they so idealized? The answer is so that we mere mortals may be inspired by these stories to overcome our flaws, to avoid the mistakes of the past, and to hope for a better future. This is the position that Wiglaf (and the audience) is left in at the end of the film: is he doomed to succumb to temptation and corruption like those who came before him, or can the tale and memory of those such as Beowulf give him the strength and courage to resist?
It's a new and interesting layer to the story, providing greater dimension and expressing an interesting, meta-textual perspective on the poem - a companion, not a replacement. There's more to cover here - too much, really - but hopefully it's apparent that there is indeed more to this film than what meets the eye.
Is the film a masterpiece? No. For all the intelligent choices made in the adaptation, the execution seems a bit off. Post-"300", the soundtrack is sprinkled with distorted electric guitar riffs to let the teenage boys know that, no, really, this story is COOL. During Beowulf's fight with Grendel, the constant and convenient coverage of his genitals quickly becomes an annoying joke. The animation, while often breathtakingly detailed and beautiful, occasionally looks dull and lifeless; the heightened realism of the motion-capture movements highlights some of the faults of the rendered character designs and lighting. Lastly, while going all-digital has freed up Zemeckis's camera to create some mind-bogglingly creative and awesome shots, he does have a tendency to go over-the-top and his direction calls attention to itself; a tad more restraint could have made this film a classic. As is, it's solid entertainment.
If you can accept that the poem is the poem and the film is the film, then "Beowulf" is highly recommended.
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