Beowulf review

So I  saw Beowulf the other night and figured I might as well do a review, seeing as how so many people out there really don't understand where the story came from and therefore what the story they are seeing is.

The movie itself was pretty good.  My friends got creeped out by the CG so I think that means it was good.  The still shots could have competed with live action.  It was in 3d I-MAX which is really the way to go on something like this.  It's a spectacle, pure and simple.  And that's when I have to break from regular review mode and start to dissect where it came from and why most people are reading into this film... wrong.

Beowulf is from an 8th century Old English poem.  It is famous because it is

• an incredible example of the archetypal story of Journey of the Hero
• the second oldest written work in English (the first being Gilgamesh)

Now, as far as reviews go that I have seen it seems that many teachers and professors are impressed with how close to the text it remained.  Many "regular folks" have been saying it's a bit flat and to the point.  They're both right.  We're talking source material from the 700s.  How much of a rounded character do you want?  Dynamic development?  Modern character development as a hero who is also a villain on some level?  Fuck off to that!  Beowulf isn't a great story because it was well written.  Beowulf is a great story because it was written at all!  The spectacle of the poem was that the people passing it down had the gift of letters.  Until then stories had been an oral tradition.  In fact, you can tell this because (outline format again)

• the movie makes constant references to the story of Beowulf that will be told
• the actual poem is pretty much formatted as "I am going to tell you a story..."  It's not actually in any sort of narrative other than a first person storyteller

That said, the new script has amazing amounts of layering worked in considering what they were working with.  What people seem to have missed completely is that while there isn't a lot of character development there's a huge dynamic between cultures.  The movie is framed as a sort of true story.  There are many differences from the poem but those are all actually addressed in the film.  What the movie sets out to do is tell you a story but let you see the schism between the old polytheist cultures and the new Roman Christ Jesus religion.  Was that a bit of a jump?  Let me explain.

Throughout the whole movie things happen that aren't in the poem.  The poem is pretty much: Beowulf kills Grendel, a monster/demon.  Beowulf kills Grendel's mother, an older monster/demon.  Beowulf sets out to kill a last monster and is killed in the act, a valiant and honorable death for a warrior.  That's it, guys.  That's the whole story.  So what does the movie give us?  It gives us the story of a man who does these things but also give the characters a reason to fight.  A land plagued by a monster.  Why this land?  The king.  Ok, it goes on from there.  And every time a complication like that occurs, something that would tarnish the reputation of the hero, it gets dumbed down into the written poem which is essentially a bragging resume for the dead.  Before the Christian afterlife (Jews don't have a hell to speak of) people only had their legacy to give them any form of immortality.  By making the story great they made sure that only the best of that person lived forever.  No one wants to hear the immortal poem of "Stan, the guy who was pretty OK but did lose a lot of money gambling and once had an affair".  That would be a shitty epic poem.

Now, back to the culture.  Any time you see something in the movie that isn't in the poem, or vice versa, then you get a little insight into one of the surviving characters or the culture.  Examples?  Sure.  How about when Beowulf tries to explain the true story of his fights to Wealthow and Wealthow refuses to listen.  That's because Wealthow knows Beowulf the hero already and that's who he wants to live on if Beowulf dies in the cave.  When Beowulf first shows up and tells the story of killing 9 sea serpents and one of his guys mutters it was 3 last time.  We see some of Beowulf's vanity as well as the origin of the monsters in the poem.  Or when King Hrothgar is asked by Unferth if he would like to pray to the new Roman god, Christ Jesus and Hrothgar declines.  In the actual poem Grendel is explained not to be a demon but rather one of the descendants of Cain and therefore of evil seed.  Scholars know that the poem was written before Christianity and that means the Christian elements were written in later by people making new copies of the epic.  Unfurth's crippled assistant is named Cain and that should be looked at from a completely non-Christian point of view.  Then Unfurth becomes a priest!  Ah, so he will learn to write (as clergy tended to be the only educated folks back then) and has a personal link with Cain the name and Cain in the bible.  So we already gt many shades of truth and cultural interpretations worked into the story of a sad, fallible man named Beowulf.

Got all that?  I'm not saying it was the greatest movie ever.  Hell, I'm not saying it's faithful to the source material (quite the opposite).  What I am getting at is that anyone saying the characters were flat and boring and a bit one sided as a complete negative really doesn't know what it is they're watching.  Sure, the movie can stand on it's own as a story.  So can the poem.  But without context both of those versions of Beowulf come across as simple and full of people that really don't change.  In context the poem is amazing just because it's an example of written English!  Wow!  And the movie is a study in cultural shifts during the early spread of Christianity that happens to have a bunch of kick-ass monsters and bad-ass fights.  So the fact that Beowulf was done in 3D to be a spectacle of technology is fitting.  Both are have a fun, simple story that takes advantage of the newest forms of storytelling.  Toss in some really dirty dialogue and one fantastically obvious ejaculation reference and you've got a fun movie.


EDIT:  Beowulf, I am now being told, is in fact the oldest English epic. Gilgamesh is in fact in Mesapotamian.  Blame English teachers for the temporary mix up.