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Beowulf


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Saw this in IMAX 3D today. As 3D effects goes, this movie is amazing, eye-popping (sometimes literally...) -- some of the best CGI action sequences I've ever seen. The staging, the atmosphere, the CGI lighting is great.

 

The movie itself is sort of Excalibur-lite, warmed-over Boorman, but OK. You do feel that the performances would have been improved had they been real live-action scenes and not CGI. You can only take so much "acting" by CGI figures...

 

Definitely see this in 3D.

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I'm gonna check this out at the Irvine IMAX this week, hopefully. That Angelina-inspired CGI babe is enough to get me into the theater. :)

 

Is this "real 3D"? I imagine since they literally have the whole picture in 3D, they can make "real" 3D, as oppose to this retro-3D process Lucas and all of them have been talking about, where older films are retro-fitted as 3D. I saw the Superman IMAX 3D and wasn't all that impressed. Then again, I don't know anything about the various new 3D processes.

 

Was the 3D impressive and realistic?

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Haha, nice. People jumping out of their chairs, spilling their popcorn, reaching out for the screen... reminds of the good old Captain Eo days. Yeah, I mean they literally have the thing existing in a computer in a 3D environment, so in theory they have could have as many "camera angles" as they needed to make the 3D look great.

 

Can't wait to see it.

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Saw it in Real D. As a movie, it actually felt very old school, sort of Ray Harryhausen meets Broadway, I dunno, "Cats" or something...

("Excaliber lite" is not a bad description David !)

 

The "Angelina-inspired babe" is _rather_ well engineered, I think you won't be dissapointed, Tom.

 

Cuts from medium-wides to very wide have that strange Tom Thumb effect of making the characters suddenly appear half size :blink:

 

And over the shoulders are quite bizarre (I'm no big fan of OTS in 2D, maybe I should not complain....)

 

Certainly some interesting potential, but I'm not sure how far you can go with conventional cutting / grammar -----

 

-Sam

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Saw this in RealD 3D last weekend. I saw it mainly for all the technology but it seems the technology sapped the humanity out of the movie with the people looking like strange plastic puppets. I'm not a fan of the motion capture method, I think it would have been better either fully animated or live action. As Colbert says "Pick a side. We're at war!"

 

The 3D was great but it seemed like some of the shots weren't well suited to 3D, like over the shoulder shots. I was most impressed by the wideshots and long takes. They seemed to look the most natural in 3D. Also I noticed some strobing especially in the beginning not sure what caused that.

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I watched it in digital 3D, but not Imax. The 3D worked very well most of the time. The obligatory framing of objects on a few occasions to exploit the effect (such as a spear head that filled almost half of the frame) was a little annoying, but forgivable.

 

The modeling of Grendel was amazing. I'd like to see a film made with this technology where all the scenes are rendered as high quality as the closeups on the actors. Some of the closeups had an amazing level of detail and near-realism. The wides and mediums sometimes looked too plastic, Shrek-ish.

 

My biggest complaint is that some of the lighting made the 3D look like layers of 2D. This is most evident in scenes like the banquet hall at the beginning. It might be because the characters were always backlit and the key lights were torches, so the characters popped out too much. I wonder how it would have looked with the characters falling more into shadow.

 

All in all it was enjoyable with some very cool moments, and I'm not much of an animation fan.

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Been running this movie at the drive in.Non 3 D.We've adjusted the lamphouses and shutters to get maximum light on the screen and except for a few very dark scenes,it doesn't suffer too badly.There is one scene where the queen is talking to the young girl,a night exterior that's just unwatchable on a drive in screen,but surprisingly the rest of the movie looks OK.Not great,but OK.

 

I loved the story as a kid reading it in school,but if I was doing the piece,I would've opted for a gritty,live action look (more akin to Braveheart)as opposed to the video game look,but that's just me.

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I loved the story as a kid reading it in school,but if I was doing the piece,I would've opted for a gritty,live action look (more akin to Braveheart)as opposed to the video game look,but that's just me.

 

Give 'Beowulf and Grendel' 2005 a look.

 

Filmed in Iceland in the winter, eventhough it looks nothing like Denmark.

 

Gerard Butler isn't as obnoxious as he was in '300'.

Stellan Skarsgard is a good drunken Hrothgar.

 

Supposedly the only digital effect was removing shake from a shot where the wind was shaking the camera.

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I wasn't planning to see this but because of your 'review' David I'm going to check it out in 3D at the Arclight's 10:55pm showing tonight. :)

 

I hope it's good...

 

Actually, although I'm not sure I'll enjoy the narrative I'm pretty confident it'll be an enjoyable experience. I've always loved the idea of 3D as the next big thing in cinema and although it may never happen it'll be fun to see how moviemakers are playing with the technology in 2007.

 

Evan W.

 

P.S - if anyone hasn't seen 'No Country For Old Men' then do yourself a massive favor and check it out. It's likely the best film I've seen this year. The editing, cinematography, direction, and acting are superb! (*warning*: the movie is quite violent)

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  • 3 weeks later...

I saw this over the weekend in 2K Digital 3D (not IMAX) and enjoyed it. A lot of nice action scenes, especially that stuff with Grendel! Wow that guy was a filthy maniac!

 

The Angelina Jolie model was like the hottest thing I have ever seen. :)

 

The 3D effect, IMO, was no better or worse than the 3D from the 1980s I saw as a kid, like Captain Eo. I guess 3D itself has not really progressed much?

 

I did notice that Beowulf's right-hand man (voiced by "Hamish" from Braveheart - Brendan Gleeson) was the most photo-realistic character. There are a few moments in the movie when he actually could pass for real.

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Been running this movie at the drive in.Non 3 D.We've adjusted the lamphouses and shutters to get maximum light on the screen and except for a few very dark scenes,it doesn't suffer too badly.There is one scene where the queen is talking to the young girl,a night exterior that's just unwatchable on a drive in screen,but surprisingly the rest of the movie looks OK.Not great,but OK.

 

I loved the story as a kid reading it in school,but if I was doing the piece,I would've opted for a gritty,live action look (more akin to Braveheart)as opposed to the video game look,but that's just me.

 

At the Drive-In? I'm so glad to hear that. Drive-ins are such great Americana. Can you post a picture some time?

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  • 4 weeks later...

Beowulf was pretty sweeeeeeeeet

 

Purely for entertainment. Anyone who tried to take it seriously totally missed the point.

 

But, it's the best 3D work I've ever seen, and for that it gets a thumbs up :)

 

My only issue was during a couple of the dining hall scenes, I felt like I was watching animatronic figures, ala the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

Edited by Jonathan Bowerbank
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