Director: Robert Zemeckis
Writers: Neil Gaman, Roger Avary
Cinematography: Robert Presley
Editor: Jeremiah O’Driscoll
Music: Alan Silvestri
Notable Cast: Ray Winstone, Brendan Gleeson, Robin Wright, Anthony Hopkins, John Malkovich, Crispin Glover, Angelina Jolie, Alison Lohman
What can you say about a guy like Robert Zemeckis? He’s been around forever and constantly pushes the envelope, both aesthetically and narratively, to admittedly mixed results. While I admire the artist, the art is kind of inert. Outside of this film, Back to the Future and Cast Away are the only other films of his that I like.
Back to the Future is an absolute classic. Saw it when I was 10, could not fucking believe it. I remember being so pumped to see it, too, and trying to figure out what the title meant. I thought maybe from their perspective, the past is also the future somehow. I’m not sure I even saw a trailer. But the film blew me away, and a big part of it was seeing the world of 1955, which was the same timeframe my parents were teenagers themselves. It was intoxicating. A nearly perfect film.
Cast Away was pretty good, I like the meat of the film, but the beginning and ending really detract from the overall effect. How much better would it have been had the film started with Hanks already on the airplane? You could get out a little backstory here without the “crush you over the head” exposition of the opening twenty minutes. And then you’d get right into the action. Same with the end, it should have ended at the airport with him, again, alone, isolated, scared. Perfect bookend. But no, they studio-ed the shit out of it. Still though, the meat of the film on the island is quite effective.
I believe Cast Away’s flaws are the main things that have held Zemeckis back from being considered as great as his contemporaries like Spielberg (though I think Spielberg sucks, the consensus of the asses is that he is great). One look at Zemeckis’ filmography and it is just one good concept/bad film after another. My buddy Altos LOVED Who Framed Roger Rabbit when we were kids, I always thought it blew. Romancing The Stone is okay, but hardly a great film, maybe I was too young at the time? The Back to the Future sequels ranged from middling to quite shitty. Death Becomes Her? My wife loves that shit, I can’t take more than 20 minutes. Just can’t get with it. Forrest Gump has some good shit, but is ultimately whatever. Same with Contact, some good shit, but ultimately a letdown. You get the idea.
So, when I stumbled upon Beowulf one night on HBO, in the middle of the film, no less, I was blown away at how good it was. A very tough, manly movie. An essay in macho, as my dearly departed father would say. This is an adult film that treats the audience like adults, and it’s fucking animated!
Sure, it’s that motion capture “kind of real/kind of obviously fake” style, but still, an animated film that does not pander or dumb itself down? Sign me the fuck up! I immediately sought out a copy of the film so I could watch from beginning to end, because I desperately had to know… how were the 1ST 5 Minutes?
1ST 5 MINUTES
First thing we experience when sitting down to watch this movie is Alan Silvestri’s incredibly muscular score, containing one of the best themes he has ever composed, which is saying something for the guy who created the insanely memorable themes for Predator and Back to the Future. I already feel like I’m back in the 6th century, living during the last age of heroes, where myths and fables still held sway. This music is exactly how you start a film like this, grab the audience by the collar and slap them in their fucking face! Silvestri is the man.
Crank your speakers up to max volume and just listen to this:
How does that not pump you up?
We cut to a massive celebration in the famous mead hall of King Hrothgar, ruler of Denmark, played by the great Anthony Hopkins, and his Queen, played by the great Robin Wright. Hrothgar is portrayed as a drunk but well-meaning fool, who seems to be a benevolent ruler to his subjects. His wife, for her part, seems exasperated by his drinking.
We then get our first look at the great John Malkovich as Hrothgar’s trusted advisor, Unferth. He’s peeing next to a fellow countryman and discussing this new religion he’s heard about. He doesn’t explicitly say, but it is clear he’s talking about Christianity. Love this. An animated movie about a Danish kingdom 1,500 years ago where they’re discussing some mysterious new Roman God? Amazing. Where else you gonna get shit like that? Already, Gaiman and Avary’s writing is shining through.
We see more of the party, how much of a lascivious creep Hrothgar can be when drunk, and how his demeanor has crept down to his loyal subjects, who seem to drink and fornicate with just as much relish as he does.
The animation is notable here. Some of it is dodgy, and some of it is a revelation with how incredibly photorealistic it looks. At points in the film you’re really questioning if what you are seeing is real or animated. And you get a taste of it here in the 1ST 5. If nothing else, the look of the film sucks you in and makes you thirsty for more.
These 1ST 5 end with a mouse scampering around the rafters of the mead hall and toward the roof as the loyal Thanes below chant Hrothgar’s name in celebration. I don’t know about you, but there’s no way I’m taking this movie off at this point. Way too much good shit, all led by Alan Silvestri and his iconic score.
Yes, you already see the way this film, originally projected in 3D on its theatrical release, tries to take advantage of the 3D with the way certain shots and actions are crafted. It’s a bit too obvious at times, but watching it in 2D, it doesn’t really detract from the film at all, especially if you didn’t know it was meant to be seen in 3D.
The rest of the flick
You’re immediately rewarded for staying put when the first Grendel attack scene occurs. Crispin Glover is amazing as the tragic demon who quite literally just wants to lead a quiet life, but these damn townsfolk and their merriment are just too much to bear. The design of the Grendel creature is well done, the most fascinating feature of which is his left ear, essentially a very sensitive, fleshy, vibrating membrane. He has golden scales and open wounds, lumbers around, slightly deformed. A truly terrifying giant.
The way this whole scene is shot and blocked is extremely well done, none moreso than the lighting. The look of the animation when Grendel makes the lights go out is wondrous. Scenes like this with shadowy lighting are easily the best looking images in the whole film. Incredibly realistic looking and quite effective. The violence is swift and brutal and bloody.
Grendel eats his victims, tears them apart, drinks their blood, whimpers, cries, screams, until finally Hrothgar challenges him to “fight me.” Grendel looks almost peaceful as he goes over to Hrothgar and just considers him. Doesn’t attack or do anything like he has just done for the past five minutes. Almost like he is incapable of fighting Hrothgar for some reason. And Hrothgar does nothing but hold up his sword, he takes no action against the foul beast. Grendel then lashes out in pain and disappears into a blue flame in the middle of the room.
It’s a wild scene.
When Grendel goes back to his mother, we only focus on him, we never see her, at least we don’t see her full on, we catch glimpses of her here and there in reflections of the gold treasures she has collected over the years. But check Glover’s performance in this scene, all his dialogue entirely in Old English, and not subtitled! How bold is that? This is a mainstream film put out by a major studio, and you have an entire scene almost exclusively in untranslated Old English? Absolutely amazing. It sounds so cool the way Glover almost sings his dialogue. So tender, almost childlike in his countenance and mannerisms.
It’s a great performance, and adds shades to what would normally be a one dimensional movie monster. Glover imbues him with real heart, and despite his savagery, you almost come to feel he is just misunderstood. That’s powerful, to take an odious malformed demon like this and force you to empathize with him. The production design here is also very well done, looks like the demon’s lair is located in the desiccated ribcage of a giant dragon or something. Great shit.
The next day, surveying the carnage, Hrothgar orders that the mead hall be forever closed and no merriment be allowed, lest it attract the demon, Grendel. Unferth asks Hrothgar if he’d like to have him pray for assistance to “the new Roman God, Christ Jesus.” Hrothgar waves him off, “No, the Gods will do nothing for us that we will do for ourselves. What we need is a hero!” YES!
Cut to our first look at Ray Winstone’s Beowulf and Brendan Gleeson’s Wiglaf, as they and their men are making their way in a big wooden ship through a truly violent storm on the open seas.
They exchange some manly banter about having no idea where they are, leading to my Favorite Line in the film, uttered by Beowulf, “The sea is my Mother, she’ll never take me back to her murky womb.” How great is that line?
What’s unspoken here, which again adds to the film’s sophistication, is that this storm is not natural, it’s too big, too wild, and is likely the doing of Angelina Jolie’s yet unseen water demon, trying to keep any challenge to her power over Hrothgar protected.
They finally get to Denmark and Beowulf lets them all know he is there to kill their demon. It all feels very authentic and period specific. The language is great. Winstone absolutely KILLS it as Beowulf. I just love his voice and his accent, I could listen to him all day. I first saw him in Gary Oldman’s Nil By Mouth, and have loved him ever since. This UNKLE music video he starred in, directed by John Hillcoat, is one of my favorite things he’s ever done. Check the way his voice cracks when he says how his life was changing when he was 17.
Fantastic actor.
Winstone gives an absolutely monumental performance here, both in his early mythic hero form, and his later diminished, defeated old man. He truly imbues the character with real pathos and tragedy. But let’s deal with his early scenes first, where he’s still the hero this country needs.
The part where he regales them with tall tales of fights with sea creatures in the middle of 5 day swimming races in the open ocean is a standout. Both for the interplay between Winstone and Malkovich, two absolute titans, and the insane flashback to his actual fight with the sea monsters.
I love how after Beowulf lies about plunging the dagger into the monster’s heart, we cut to a close up of his face and you can see how conflicted he is when retelling this story. It’s a cartoon, but it’s so serious, and so well acted that you almost forget that fact. This is the world’s first truly adult animated film, and I don’t mean that in the XXX sense, though we’ll get to Beowulf’s fight with Grendel in a minute.
It’s a very sophisticated story of how even the greatest and bravest warriors can fall in a moment of weakness, and the stories of Hrothgar and Beowulf end up serving as mirrors for one another, as do the stories of Beowulf and Grendel. I never read the original poem, obviously, why would I, I don’t read shit like that. I’m fairly uneducated, in the grand scheme of things. But whatever Gaiman and Avary did to embellish and enhance the story should be wildly applauded. They did yeoman’s work with the writing here. Masculine and tough and tender and tragic. It’s one of the best scripts of the aughts. Hands down.
The fight with the sea monsters is fucking electric. Very well choreographed and shot, especially love when Beowulf jumps from one monster to the other with his dagger outstretched, slicing the length of the creature as he falls to the sea, it’s blood and guts pouring down with him. Also love when the other creature swallows him and he busts out of it through the creature’s eye, then screams “BEOWULF!” This is a manly picture, and makes no apologies about it.
The scene ends with Beowulf being approached by a mermaid, a mermaid with the same shaped tail as the dragon at the end. And him dropping his dagger in the face of her beauty. A clear foreshadowing of what is to come, and what Beowulf’s one true weakness is. Is this the same water demon later played by Jolie? It’s never answered.
Malkovich is fantastic in the role of Unferth. He’s an honest advisor, not one of those devious ones, though the casting of Malkovich makes you doubt it. This scene here, where he questions Beowulf’s stories and voices his many doubts that Beowulf will prevail over Grendel, is particularly delicious. Love his turn once Beowulf defeats Grendel, and he presents his father’s sword to Beowulf to go kill the demon’s Mother. And then in the future when he’s the one to deliver the message from the dragon. He plays a small but crucial part throughout the entire picture, and is one of its best attributes. The casting of Malkovich was genius. One of his more enjoyable performances, which is saying something for the guy who played Cyrus the Virus.
But first, we get to the standout fight scene between Beowulf and Grendel, where Beowulf does the whole scene naked, because the monster has no armor or weapon, neither shall he. This fight scene is somehow even more vicious and bloodcurdling than the opening one, with one “highlight” being Grendel biting a man’s head clear off his neck and chowing down on the cranium. It’s gruesome shit. And though the many ways Zemeckis obscures Beowulf’s genitals can get a bit Austin Powers-y, it’s still tough as nails, pure warrior shit. I love when Beowulf jumps on Grendel’s back and starts punching the shit out of that ear membrane, ripping a hole in it, which is our first indication the creature can be hurt.
Grendel actually gets smaller. Wiglaf yells to the men, “The demon shrinks!” and the men repeat to each other, “It shrinks.”
I love that.
And while we obviously still want to see Beowulf prevail, here we get more of Glover’s amazing performance, as you really feel bad for Grendel as he tries to escape. Even when he first breaks into the mead hall and surprises Beowulf and his men, you can see Grendel hurt his hand breaking the door down. It’s a nice little detail, mainly because an actual actor is acting here, and it’s not just some maquette created in a computer by some programmer.
Beowulf takes advantage of the creature’s injury, and ends up trapping it with a chain wrapped around its arm. Grendel tries to pull away, but can’t. Beowulf slams the door on Grendel’s arm, and slams it again and again, Grendel screams, and then says actual words for the first time in front of men. It’s in response to Beowulf calling him a demon.
In Old English, Grendel says, “I’m not a demon of Hell.” (As he is a spawn of demon and man) Beowulf says to himself, “It speaks,” and then screams back to his men, “IT SPEAKS!” Such a great moment. I don’t really know why, but I love that shit.
Grendel actually asks Beowulf who he is, and Beowulf’s line back to him is absolutely fucking dope. “I am ripper, tearer, slasher, gouger. I am the teeth in the darkness, the talons in the night. Mine is strength and lust and power. I am BEOWULF!” GODDAMN!
With that he slams the door on Grendel’s left arm, chopping it clean off, much like Beowulf has to sever his own left arm later during the fight with the dragon. Again, this goes back to how good the script is, with all the mirroring themes. It’s great.
There is much rejoicing at Beowulf having slain the demon, but it is rather quickly revealed, through a dream sequence that turns into reality, something is afoul. Beowulf awakes to all his men, save Wiglaf, who was out on a walk, hanging from the rafters, all dead!
Hrothgar reveals that Grendel had a mother, and she must be slain as well. Beowulf flips out, wonders how many more he must kill. Makes a mention of Grendel’s father, which Hrothgar immediately shoots down, says Grendel’s father is no threat. It’s odd. How does he know so much?
It’s amazing when it is revealed later that Grendel was Hrothgar’s son, after he was seduced by Angelina Jolie’s water demon, which also made him sterile so he could never father an heir to his kingdom. It’s tragic. We know Hrothgar was a great warrior who single handedly slayed dragons in his youth, a far cry from the drunk old fat man who can barely stand half the time we see him.
Beowulf goes to slay the mother, but is instead seduced by her promises of power and glory in exchange for giving her a son. It is doubtful he could prevail in any real way, as her magic dissolves his sword with but a touch (a salient metaphor for how feminine wiles can melt even the strongest man, or it could also be seen as a metaphor for his erect penis, his virility, which she defuses, turning him into a eunuch). She seems too powerful. Hers is an eternal evil, elemental, an evil that has been with mankind since the beginning, acting on us, seducing us to do its bidding. It’s a potent throughline of this film.
Beowulf returns with Grendel’s head and says he slayed the mother by plunging Unferth’s sword into her heart. Everyone but Hrothgar believes him. My Favorite Scene occurs here, where Hrothgar pulls Beowulf aside and repeatedly asks about Grendel’s mother. Check Hopkins’ reaction when Beowulf calls her a hag. “She’s no hag, Beowulf.” This is Hopkins at his best.
Beowulf’s reaction when he realizes he just made the same fatal mistake as Hrothgar, namely, sleeping with the water demon, and that he is now cursed, lifting the curse Hrothgar lived with since his dalliance with the demon, is amazing.
The moment is given its proper weight, as the reality of what Beowulf has just done hits him with full force. He is now fated to the same slow, shameful demise Hrothgar has been subjected to. His life force taken from him by this one moment of weakness. Powerful.
Later, moments after Hrothgar declares that Beowulf will be king upon his death, Hrothgar jumps from the tower to his watery demise in the sea below. The Queen, Unferth and Wiglaf look down to see his dead body lying in the surf, and something golden under the water quickly darts in and takes Hrothgar’s body away. Really creepy and effective, mainly cause none of the characters remark on it, if they even notice what happened. Gives me chills.
Beowulf, under a heavy cloud, is named King, and the crown is put on his head, which leads to my Favorite Shot in the whole film. We push in to the crown on his head, circle the crown in CU as Silvestri’s amazing theme plays, when we eventually pull out, it’s been 50 years and Beowulf is an old, sad King. I absolutely LOVE compact storytelling like this. A 50 year time jump contained within one shot! Zemeckis did such an outstanding job with this picture. Totally unexpected.
And the Beowulf we see 50 years later is a defeated and diminished old man. Not fat and lost in alcohol like Hrothgar, just somber and likely depressed at the Faustian bargain he made lo those many years ago. His joy for life is gone. Winstone is just out of his mind in this role, he plays both versions of Beowulf to the hilt, and is convincing every step of the way.
Just look at him here, where he laments the rise of Christianity leading to the end of the age of heroes, and then lets a lowly adversary directly challenge him. Beowulf’s misery and hopelessness is evident. But you can still sense the old Beowulf inside him, as he begs the raider to kill him, then reveals no one can kill him, for he died many years ago. Powerful stuff.
But then, an opportunity for Beowulf to redeem himself, as the Golden Dragon horn that he left in Grendel’s mother’s cave has returned on the eve of the anniversary of his defeat of said demon. A dragon torched an outlying town, then transformed into a golden humanoid and gave Unferth a message to deliver to King Beowulf, the dragon’s father, namely, that the sins of the father have returned.
Beowulf goes to Grendel’s mother’s cave to return the horn, but she refuses, and he is instead faced with a giant dragon, his son, as it roars past him to go destroy Beowulf’s kingdom and all his people in a truly fantastic action sequence.
The design of the dragon is amazing, easily one of, if not the best, dragons I have seen on a screen. And the sound it makes! Incredible work from the creative team here. Particularly love the underwater sequence and the fire coming from the sides of the dragon’s mouth as it swims. The imagery is astounding.
This whole end fight is great, from Beowulf severing his own arm like he did to Grendel, to using Hrothgar’s advice on how to kill a dragon, to him ripping the creature’s heart out with his bare hand (just as his theme finally returns on the soundtrack in a thrilling way), this is top notch action cinema, but with real emotion and purpose behind it.
Remember, Beowulf is killing his only son, and the scene where they lay next to each other, dying in the surf below, is quite moving, as the dragon transforms back to his golden human form, resembling a perfect version of a young Beowulf.
Beowulf looks at him with tenderness, reaches out to his son and firmly grabs his shoulder with what appears to be fatherly love, right before the golden body is whisked out to sea. Very moving, especially for a picture like this, where you are consistently impressed with how much respect they treat the audience with.
When a dying Beowulf tries to confess to Wiglaf that he didn’t really kill Grendel’s mother, Wiglaf won’t hear of it, the legend of Beowulf is too important for him to worry about a silly notion like truth or falsity.
Truly the age of myth and legend, when songs were written of great men’s exploits.
The movie ends on a fantastically ambiguous note. After Beowulf’s funeral at sea (where we see through the flames a brief glimpse of Grendel’s mother kissing the dead Beowulf), the assembled throngs depart the beach, leaving only Wiglaf standing on the shore, staring off at where his old friend is “buried,” when suddenly he sees the Golden Dragon Horn has returned, washed up on the beach beside him.
He picks it up, considers it, then again looks into the sea, and what gazes back? Angelina Jolie’s water demon, her head just above the surface, beckoning Wiglaf to join her. He wades into the water, then stops, hesitates, but continues to stare at her, as she stares seductively back. And that’s it, the movie ends on Wiglaf, standing there, contemplating what to do. YES! Always gives me chills.
The film serves as a wonderful metaphor for infidelity and unchecked carnal lust. Grendel himself is an externalization of Hrothgar’s shame, he cheated on his wife with a literal demon that spawned a half demon that destroys his whole way of life, and in the end, even takes it. Much like how infidelity in a marriage can destroy that union and have devastating effects on the entire family.
Hrothgar was not evil, he was weak, and his weakness allowed evil to enter and work through him. As with Beowulf, whose moment of weakness stole his very soul out from under him, and killed his indomitable spirit. One can read this as blaming women, that they represent a sort of succubus, but this is a manly picture, and manly men do not blame women for their troubles.
No, this is all about the men and their weaknesses. One can have the biggest muscles and the most courage and daring, but the flesh is still weak. The thread of Christianity being introduced to this world is an interesting one. Beowulf himself laments what he perceives as the religion’s inherent weakness, the irony being if he was a Christian it may have given him the strength to withstand the advances of the beautiful water demon. Or maybe not. Who knows…
All a long way of saying, this is a very deep film, with a lot of ideas on its mind, that is unapologetically masculine and very period specific, with no post-modern bullshit (like making the Queen a “badass girlboss”) or time for nonsense. This is everything adventure filmmaking should be about.
Word is Roger Avary was supposed to originally direct this as a live action, low budget deal. Fascinating to think of what that would have looked like.
As it is, we get one of the best films of the 21st century from one of Hollywood’s most storied filmmakers. It doesn’t get better than this.
Great writing, amazing imagery, embodied performances, muscular music… and it’s all there in those 1ST 5 Minutes.
The One Sheet
The main poster for this flick is not great, a simple shot of Beowulf from the waist up, no sense of the intelligence or brutality contained therein. You don’t even get any copy or a simple tagline.
Pedestrian, at best.
These character posters, on the other hand, when viewed together tell a fascinating pictorial story. From the Pride is the Curse collection to the I Will Kill Your Monster theme to the foreign ones, we get a great idea of the kind of film we’re about to see. I love how many of them there are here.
Great marketing campaign.
And that does it for Beowulf. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention one last thing, and a nice note to end on. I didn’t say much about Robin Wright in this article, and for good reason, as her character doesn’t really do much throughout the film.
Beowulf unapologetically belongs to the gentlemen.
But she does have one standout scene, where she plays a small harp and sings a song of heroism and home. It’s quite lovely, and a real divergence from the machismo on display.
A beautiful counterpoint.
Listen:
Just wait, though wide he may roam
Always
A hero comes home
He goes where no one has gone
But always
A hero comes home
He knows of places unknown
Always
A hero comes home
He goes where no one has gone
But always
A hero comes home
See you in two generous cups of mead…