Beowulf – Directors Cut (2007/Blu-ray)
Picture:
A- Sound: A-
Extras: B Film: C+
The
career of writer/producer/director Robert Zemeckis is certainly an odd one with
few highs and many lows. His films
manage to make money, but are often forgettable with time. Perhaps his highest moments as a director
were working with Tom Hanks, who together made Forrest Gump in 1994 and Cast
Away in 2000. Of course his claim to
fame will still reside in the Back to
the Future Trilogy, but even with films of this caliber, he has started to
rely on heavy digital work to make his films and that short cut will be his
ultimate downfall.
He has
always had an interest though in the creative cartoon world and digital
animation combined with the real life, which his 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit would kick off. Then many years later in 2004 with the film The Polar Express, again utilizing Tom
Hanks, but using totally digital visuals.
Beowulf, his latest feature
combines a digitally created world and digitally altered real live actors in
order to bring the mythological world to ‘life’ and the results are not only
mixed, but at times a complete failure.
Most
people at some point in time probably HAD to read the story of Beowulf and very
few attempts have been made thus far to bring this epic to the silver screen,
after seeing this film you will quickly realize not only the tremendous task of
doing so, but also the reasons perhaps no one else has dared attempt to do
so. It will also make you appreciate the
attention to detail that Director Peter Jackson took when faithfully
translating the world of Tolkien to the big screen. Unlike that trilogy, this one is just far too
complex and requires such an imagination that even in a CGI world the
characters are uninteresting.
The
casting for the film is also mixed, we have talented Ray Winstone as the title
character, John Malkovich as Unferth, Anthony Hopkins as Hrothgar, Robin Wright
Penn as Wealthow, Crispin Glover as Grendel, Allison Lohman as Ursula, and
Angelina Jolie as Grendel’s mother. It’s
a stacked house of talented A list and B list actors, which certainly shows
that a project like this appealed to many actors/actresses who wanted to see
the story come to life. However, in the
hands of Zemeckis (who again can usually round up a great cast) often fails to
deliver the goods and the screenplay by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary works, but
visually the storytelling never quite captures the essence of the classic epic
poem.
Fortunately
for fans of the film as well as those looking for a great Blu-ray to add to
their collection from a performance-basis, this one delivers and then
some. Let’s begin with the transfer of
the film, which is presented here in a highly rich and detailed 2.35 X 1
anamorphic framing, which is in 1080p High Definition. The film was released for IMAX presentation
with 70mm prints, which were taken (like the 35mm prints) from the digital
intermediate or digital 3-D source and this Blu-ray faithfully captures the
visual world created and looks great.
Despite the fact that the visual storytelling doesn’t quite link
together like it should, the problem is certainly not a performance issue as
this Blu-ray truly captures all of the nuances of the film with solid deep
blacks, pure whites, and a wide color range that DVD could never come close
to.
Then
there is the staggering sound mix, which is also a winner available here in
Dolby Digital TrueHD and bringing a top-notch sound design to it’s fullest
glory. The overall fidelity and depth of
this mix is one of the best we’ve heard to date on Blu-ray and could be reason
enough to want to track down this disc.
It would have been interesting to hear this is a DTS-HD master as well,
but the Dolby TrueHD is a winner in its own right!
Aside
from being the directors cut of the film, which runs 114-minutes as opposed to
the theatrical cut, which ran around the same length it’s difficult to really
decipher where the moments of cutting were, but both versions are so similar
that it really doesn’t equate too much.
The extras presented on this disc include a handful of features that are
targeting to those who are primarily interested in the creation of the film’s
digital world and the design of the film, which I was not impressed with, so
these features really didn’t really grab me either. There are also some deleted scenes present,
which a quick run through seem to be wise cuts from the film, although those
who really love the story would probably like to see more footage to
accommodate that. A conversation with
Zemeckis is also included and this 50GB Blu-ray makes for a solid release
despite some of the films shortcomings, the overall performance makes it highly
tempting though!
- Nate Goss
