monkey!

November 21, 2007

Beowulf is marketing gone terribly wrong

Last night I saw Beowulf, the nearly-realistic 3d movie based on the epic poem. Coming into this movie, I was very pumped. When I saw the first trailer for Beowulf I was pretty intrigued, I couldn’t even tell if the movie was in CG, or my eyes were just deceiving me, turns out the movie is entirely in CG, which was pretty darn impressive as many scenes it was very hard to tell if it was real, or fake.

However, despite the amazing quality of the CG work, I could not get past the massive amount of disappointment I had for this movie as the credits rolled.

The problem for me was the trailers; They were full of hardcore, pump-me-up music, lots of action, and some good quality screaming from Beowulf himself, I came into the theater fully expecting nearly 2 hours of awesome.

What did I get instead? A very well done 3d movie, with a lot of lulls, a terrible score, hilariously bad dialogue (”There have been many a brave soldier come to taste my husband’s mead. “), and not as much action as the trailer seemingly promised me.

The movie honestly had a lot of dialogue and there were many scenes where it was deathly quiet, mainly during character dialogue. No music in the background, just pure silence, I could actually hear the crackling of the projections at times.

Don’t get me wrong, Beowulf was a decent movie, but I came into it expecting so much more because that’s what the marketing had promised me. Tons of action, lots of screaming, and some destruction!

If every scene in Beowulf consisted of the following:

- 10-15 minute long epic battle that is very well executed -

Beowulf: “Tonight will be different! I am the ripper, the tearer, the slasher. I am the teeth in the darkness! The talons in the night! My name is strength! And lust! And power! I AM BEOWULF!“

- Demon dies, rinse and repeat formula for another hour -

Then I would have enjoyed it, because that’s what the trailer promised me.