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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Topic: Beowulf (2007)
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 11-20-2007 07:11 AM
Which is exactly the point: what't the point? You hire big name stars and then turn them into really disturbing looking, lifeless animations. I mean, if they were NOT recognizable as the actors, they would be perfectly fine, but the fact that you see the actor "underneath" the animation is just creepy. You wind up with zombies.
Hey, if I were paying big bucks for the likes of John Malcovich and Anthony Hopkins and Angelina Jolie, I sure as hell would make them ACT for the film. How does BEOWULF benefit artistically by being animated as opposed to a live action film? And if you want an animation, just make it an animation with characters that you create out of the storyline and the animators' imagination. This idea that you superimpose real actors who the audience recognizes into the animated rendering makes little artistic sense to me. The fact that you purposely impose a real actor's visage on an animated character forces the audience to constantly compare the two. It's a constant distraction. Hell, I think it's a mistake when they insist, as they do nowadays, to hire big name actors to voice animated characters. Again, it's distracting. I say, save your money and hire vocal artists to voice animated characters (there are plenty of very talented people who are perfectly capable doing this and every bit as talented as name stars) and remove that layer of recognizablility. Let the characters come alive in and of themselves. But I guess they feel that the "star" name on the marquee is essential for success. Going one step further and morphing their likeness onto the cartoon is just unsettling and IMHO, without merit.
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Brian Michael Weidemann
Expert cat molester
Posts: 944
From: Costa Mesa, CA United States
Registered: Feb 2004
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posted 11-20-2007 07:27 AM
I don't know how they captured the performances, but Malkovich's in particular gave away that there was indeed some acting going on. The mannerisms and cadence of his speech about "another Beowulf" were very much John Malkovich, I found.
Is there a top-grossing movie these days which doesn't feature a "big" name? Audiences come to see stars (or to hear them), so they're the spend-money-to-make-money aspect of the movie-making industry. Regrettably, this "talent" thing doesn't cut it alone.
You want completely fabricated and original characters? You've got Pixar doing that 100%-completely-animated thing. Great. I like seeing different studios taking different approaches. They'll perfect that (and have!), and perhaps Zemeckis and Imagemovers, or whoever is responsible, is going to perfect this performance capture technique. I don't think one's "better" than the other, just completely different, for different applications.
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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today
Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99
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posted 11-20-2007 10:08 AM
The only way this could be a benefit, in my opinion, is to use it with old, ancient actors in sequels. Let's make-believe they wanted to make a sequel to Rambo or Indiana Jones or something off the wall like that. It would be infeasible these days since the leads are approaching 1,000. But with this, you could get the original actors back in to do the voices and the motion captures, but render it so that they look like they did back when they were worth something. The whole movie doesn't need to be CG, just the old actor. Of course it'd have to be realistic enough to believe, which Beowoof is not. It's a nice tech demo, but not quite ready for prime time.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 11-20-2007 11:47 AM
I think it bears repeating, Beowulf is definitely a significant improvement over the attempts to animate realistic human figures in The Polar Express. In Zemeckis' previous movie, the results were not very good. The human faces looked pretty dead and creepy throughout the entire movie. In Beowulf there were lots of points where the character faces looked like they had some life and personality. The results were still hit and miss, but nevertheless they were an improvement.
I still disagree with that complicated motion capture approach from an artistic point of view, nevertheless the technique is something which is definitely evolving.
I also must give credit to Robert Zemeckis and his crew for trying to do such a daunting task, especially after failing more obviously with The Polar Express. It takes a hell of a lot more guts to try and fail rather than not try at all.
The rest of the animation (except for a couple of oddly animated horses) was great. The fire-breathing dragon kicked ass. There was a lot of good 3D sight gags too.
quote: Frank Angel
Hey, if I were paying big bucks for the likes of John Malcovich and Anthony Hopkins and Angelina Jolie, I sure as hell would make them ACT for the film.
Actually performing in front of film cameras would have been easier for those actors. Instead they had to be 3D scanned numerous times, allow technicians to draw registration dots all over their faces, glue sensors to their faces and wear motion capture suits for hours on end -yet still deliver a consistent performance. Not exactly a walk in the park.
quote: Brian Michael Weidemann
I don't know how they captured the performances, but Malkovich's in particular gave away that there was indeed some acting going on. The mannerisms and cadence of his speech about "another Beowulf" were very much John Malkovich, I found.
Actually, I thought Malkovich's character, Unferth, was one of the more problematic CGI people in terms of dull looking facial expressions. His captured physical mannerisms came across alright. Anthony Hopkins' physical performance as Hrothgar (as well as the facial work the CGI character) was better. I think Beowulf's friend, Wiglaf, as played by Brendan Gleeson, was the best CGI character out of the group. Wiglaf's expressions and emotion just came across better, particularly at the end of the movie.
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Mark Lensenmayer
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1605
From: Upper Arlington, OH
Registered: Sep 1999
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posted 11-30-2007 12:07 PM
The IMAX at AMC EASTON 30 was working this week. I would have been better off had it was still been broken.
This movie is just dreadful. There is NO character development whatsoever, and some of the motion capture looks like bad stop-motion footage. For example, there was one scene during Grendel's first appearance where it was looked like only every 3rd frame or so was rendered. There are also far too many 3-d gimmicks. We've seen enough arrows now, lets try to tell a story instead of tossing water at the audience.
(Nothing yet compares to the scene in ANDY WARHOL'S FRANKENSTEIN where the intestines hang off the end of the spear thrust right into the audience's face!)
Most of the men looked pretty good, but most of the women looked like wax figures. Something about the eyes is especially wrong. During some of the more intimate scenes, the eyelines did not line up at all so it looked like the two people were not even in the same conversation.
The Imax version is supposed to have some enhanced depth features. I sure didn't see any. I saw a very very limited z-axis...nothing came very far out and nothing went very far back. In fact, some of the backgrounds looked like painted scenery.
I actually laughed out loud a couple of times at the overly bombastic music and bad dialogue. This film is very close to being a comedy. Actually, some of the funniest moments occur during that long section with the naked Beowulf as the director cleverly covers up his "sword".
The mighty 50' Imax Jr. system did a pretty good job, but there was still quite a bit of dirt in spots, especially on the left eye print. Sound was pretty good, but the sub sounded like a separate system, not an extension of the main speakers. I continue to like the Imax back corner speaker placements over the side placement of 35mm digital sound. Oh, and AMC Easton needs to do a better job of cleaning the glasses...they are covered with water spots. I could not find a single set of clean glasses.
Here is one weird thing. Looking at the FIRST LOOK through the IMAX glasses showed one lens passing green light, and the other passing purple (red+blue) light.
Academic scale rating: F I have to say this is among the worst films I have ever seen. Not as bad as RABBIT TEST or NOTHING BUT TROUBLE, but very close.
[ 12-08-2007, 07:27 AM: Message edited by: Mark Lensenmayer ]
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