Surf's Up vs. Beowulf; or, Some CGI Characters Throw Down
In the first corner: Surf's Up! A lightweight contender, practically unknown! But does this little guy have the strength to take on the literary bruiser in the opposite corner? That's right, folks. Beowulf, the old-timer, the classic, has come out swinging once again, this time in CGI… and 3-D! With new manager Neil Gaiman, can anyone stop this train? Let's find out…
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One night a couple of weeks ago, I sent the boy to the video store with three criteria. The movie had to be a comedy, under 90 minutes, and something I hadn't seen before. Voila, the boy returns with Surf's Up, a wee CGI animated children's flick about a young penguin who loves to surf and is determined to win the Penguu Island surfing competition and thus become a world-famous surfer. The boy had actually heard about the movie via the Penny Arcade blog, apparently because Gabe is now a father, and his movie choices are pretty restricted now. Consider the irony of getting children's movie recommendations from Penny Arcade for a moment. Okay, moment's over.
The plotline of Surf's Up is the same as virtually every other children's sports movie ever made, so I won't bore you with it. It's a bit unusual in that it takes the form of a mockumentary, so there's some doc style camera work, the audience occasionally hears the voices of the "filmmakers" off-screen. The movie's strengths lie with its breezy characters, fast pace, and willingness to slip in a lot of references for grown-ups. The people behind Surf's Up clearly did their homework – the beginning of the movie is a "retrospective" of penguin-centric big wave surfing that owes much to the surfing documentary Riding Giants (incidentally reviewed by me a few weeks ago). I'm really glad I saw that now, since it made a lot of the Surf's Up references much funnier. Also, I shamelessly give bonus points to this movie for including a character from Wisconsin (Chicken Bob from Sheboygan, home of Great Lakes surfing!). This movie contains no surprises, but I ended up laughing a lot, so score one for the little guy.
Ding ding!
On to Beowulf. Beowulf. Beowulf. Did you know I own eight different editions of Beowulf? That I read it for fun? True. Point is, I'm probably the last person who should be reviewing Robert "The Polar Express" Zemekis' version, which operates on the assumption that if something is okay, CGI will make it spectacular.
We saw the limited-release 3-D version of CGI Beowulf, which was entertaining if only for the fact that we all got to wear the special glasses, and at several points, huge CGI weapons were brandished at the audience. Whee! The main effect of the CGI animation, however, was to make everything seem very fake and emotionally aloof. It's hard to resonate with a character if his expression barely changes. The actors of CGI Beowulf, constrained by the motion-capture technology, don't have much more range than your typical World of Warcraft character, which is a shame. Motion-capture CGI is also probably the only way to lessen the impact of Angelina Jolie's essential sultriness. She is a fundamentally sensual actress (in the sense that she uses her physicality as part of her characterization), and the CGI negates that. Zemekis, however, is convinced that CGI is Better Than Life, and will tolerate no evidence to the contrary.
The screenplay for Beowulf was written by Neil Gaiman, presumably so the thing would have some nerd cred. And it's true that Gaiman did his homework. Most basic points of the story, at least in the first half, parallel the poem. However, Gaiman also links up the two major events of the story, again, presumably to provide a more coherent (read: easily digestible) story for viewers. The original poem relates two very disparate events in Beowulf's life: Grendel, who he encounters as a young man; and the Dragon, who he meets very late in life. Gaiman innovated on Angelina Jolie as Grendel's mother (now a hottie rather than a hag) as a way to tie those two events into one narrative.
Unfortunately, this linkage also entailed altering the basic point of the story of Beowulf (because the interaction with Grendel's mom means CGI Beowulf now does something his poetic counterpart does not do) . The poem is primarily a meditation on honor and memory in a pagan world. What does it mean to have honor? Where does it come from? Is it bestowed by society or is it inborn? If heroes live on in stories, what does it mean to die? The whole point of Beowulf The Poem in spanning fifty years of one man's life is to show how those concepts change, and how everyone - hero or not - is ultimately at the mercy of a capricious world. Fate is a key element in the worldview of Beowulf; specifically the Norse perception that it'll all end in tears. To put it another way, the Beowulf the character knew that he fought on the right side, but not the winning side. And, more importantly, Beowulf the character is comfortable with that.
Beowulf The Movie alters the storyline and characters to make the downfall of Beowulf the result of his choices, which is a 180 from the poem's message that a downfall will occur regardless of one's own choices. Beowulf The Poem is damn pessimistic, but it perfectly reflects the pagan/Viking point of view. Beowulf The Movie has a considerably different vision. CGI Beowulf has a weakness for pretty women, and this one trait is the underlying motivation for every major event in the movie. This is not in itself a bad motivation for a movie – but it has nothing to do with Beowulf The Poem.
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And the judges score: CGI is a neat tool for creating a different style of animation. In the case of Surf's Up, it gives us the sight of surfing penguins without actually harming any penguins in the process, and by blessing those charming, flightless birds with anthropomorphic moves. In the case of Beowulf, the 100% CGI actually hampers the emotional element of the story. For certain characters – such as Grendel – it makes perfect sense to use CGI to portray him. The dude's inhuman, and CGI succeeds far better than make-up at emphasizing that (although being voiced by Crispin Glover sure helps). For everyone else, however, it only succeeds at making their characters blander. And Beowulf was not meant to be bland.