Every lover of ancient mythology worth their worn copy of Bulfinch's will know that there are several different versions of nearly every classic legend, so it shouldn't be the sacrelege that some critics seem to think it is that writer Neil Gaiman has dusted off the hoary Beowulf and given it a 21st Century reimagining.
In some ways, the new telling might be seen as an improvement, particularly in its new context, though to compare a thousand year old epic poem written in Old English to a state-of-the-art CGI feast of cinematic eye candy is unfair.
A love of heroism for the sake of pure glory was the basis for most of the ancient Nordic sagas and the classic myths of Greece and Rome. Art for art's sake is primarily the basis of director Robert Zemeckis' Beowulf.
What the creators of Beowulf have done is to gather all of the essential elements of a heroic romance and woven them together into a new tapestry that combines a passion for storytelling with an ambition to push the boundaries of the artists' craft in an animated film.
In addition to continuing the evolution of motion-capture animation that so effectively rendered Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Beowulf also makes vivid use of its digital format to provide some impressive 3D effects as well. A climactic battle with a dragon makes the scaly, winged beasts in the Harry Potter films seem positively timid by comparison.
Belching napalm fire and shattering stone battlements in its fury, seeing this creature on the big screen is reason enough to see this film, but there is so much more. The art itself is rendered in a brilliantly colorful style reminiscent of Luis Royo, and the characters are fascinating in their ambitious artifice.
By far the most audaciously imagined creature of the film is the monstrous Grendel, a misshapen and pathetic abortion of a thing whose capacity for human slaughter and carnage is matched only by the depth of his inner torment.
As written by Roger Avary and Neil Gaiman, Beowulf tells the story of a kingdom in ancient Scandinavia which is terrorized by a huge, troll-like monster. When word spreads that the kingdom is in need of a warrior-hero who can slay the creature, the glory seeking wanderer Beowulf takes up the challenge and at last inflicts a terrible wound upon the raging Grendel.
After Grendel's equally bloodthirsty mother descends upon the village to take revenge, Beowulf ventures to her watery lair to end the monstrous bloodline. Here is where this new Beowulf takes it's greatest departure from the original tale. Rather than killing the mother of Grendel in her lair, Beowulf is instead seduced by her, striking a devil's bargain in exchange for wealth and power.
He returns to the grateful village and lies about what transpired, explaining how he killed Grendel's Mother, describing her as a hideous hag, thereby giving rise to the legend as told in the actual 11th Century manuscript.
After a flash-forward of many decades, the fruits of Beowulf's foolish bargain are revealed as a curse to be visited upon his last days, setting the stage for his final and most truly heroic battle with the dragon.
Beowulf is bloody, graphic, sexual, and extreme to the point of being intoxicated with it's own sense of the outrageous, in the tradition of tall tales and heroic fantasy. It's as pumped with testosterone as its hero's brawny physique, and unashamedly so. This is the beginning of a new age of dark fantasy and digital storytelling, and it's fittingly ironic that the hero of the previous millennium is here to usher it in.
