CS Weekly Archive > Weekend Read > 11/16/07

Man and Superman

By david michael wharton

Writers Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary bring to life the epic Old English tale of Beowulf, uniting the three sections of his legend into one cohesive whole, and fill in the gaps with a helping of old-fashioned human frailty.

Beowulf

Screenplay by Neil Gaiman & Roger Avary
Based on the epic poem "Beowulf" by Anonymous

In ancient Denmark, King Hrothgar (voiced by Anthony Hopkins) leads his people in raucous celebration as they mark the dedication of their swanky new mead hall with singing, carousing, and lots and lots of, well, mead. Unfortunately, the noise from this shindig reaches the tender ears of Grendel (v. Crispin Glover), a miserable, misshapen creature who lives in the nearby mountains. Since no one has invented 911 yet, Grendel can't call the cops to break up the party, so instead he breaks into the mead hall and rips various essential body parts off of assorted partygoers. As the next day dawns, the Danes are left to clean the blood off the floor and Hrothgar orders the mead hall sealed to prevent another attack. Word of Hrothgar's plight eventually crosses the oceans and reaches the ears of the mighty Beowulf (v. Ray Winstone), a warrior whose prowess in battle is eclipsed only by his prowess at recounting his prowess in battle. He leads his band of merry men over to Denmark and offers to remove the good king's monster problem by slaying Grendel. Thus, the stage is set for Beowulf's legendary battle with the beast, but even once Grendel is out of the picture (sorry, spoiler warnings expire at the 100-year mark), Beowulf's troubles have only begun…because foul, cannibalistic monsters have mommies, too.

As anyone who's sat through a semester of World Lit can tell you, Beowulf's arm-rending battle with Grendel is only the first part of the story, with the other two-thirds of the epic poem following first the warrior's battle against Mommie Dearest and later against a big honkin' dragon some years later. Screenwriters Gaiman and Avary have opted to link all three of the stories together, tying the battle against the dragon thematically and narratively into the goings-on with the family Grendel. Moreover, while maintaining all the action, bluster, and braggadocio of the manly-man epic tale, Gaiman and Avary have hung the legend on the closeted skeletons of the all-too-human failings of both Hrothgar and Beowulf himself. The result is a film that marries summer-tentpole spectacle with a tragedy one can almost imagine being based on a lost Shakespeare play: The Tragedy of King Beowulf the Prideful, perhaps. (The Tragedy of King Beowulf the Horny just didn't have the same ring to it.)

At its core, this incarnation of Beowulf is about storytelling in all its forms: the stories that live on for centuries, the stories we comfort ourselves with to keep the darkness at bay, and the true stories we'd prefer not to think about. Beowulf himself is a master storyteller, most especially when it comes to tales of his own exploits. We see this early on after King Hrothgar's skeptical counsel Unferth (John Malkovich) mentions one of the tall tales that has spread about the warrior, that he challenged another fellow to a swimming race and lost. Beowulf counters by spinning the tale, which unfolds in flashback, of how he lost because he was sidetracked by killing a pack of inconvenient sea monsters. It's grandiose, it's over-the-top, and it's at this point that I was a little worried about the film. The visuals are gorgeous, and all-the-more impressive in IMAX 3D, but after Beowulf burst out of the head of one of the critters, swathed in gore, and bellowed his own name at the heavens, things were feeling just a little too…well, cartoonish. But then Gaiman and Avary did something clever. As Beowulf wound up the climax of his story, they showed us what really happened, contrasted against what he tells us happened. At the time, it plays almost as a joke, showing up the warrior as a macho braggart, however capable he later proves to be. But that moment of truth that he withholds from his audience reveals the weakness that will eventually bring about Beowulf's downfall.

It's that secret weakness that makes Beowulf a more interesting film than it otherwise would have been, and a more interesting character—with apologies to whichever nameless bard of yore first spun the tale —than he would have been in a straight adaptation of the epic poem. It's only appropriate that Beowulf immediately takes a liking to King Hrothgar's beautiful bride, Wealthow (v. Robin Wright Penn), because the two men share not only a taste in women, but a weakness for them. While the centuries that follow will tell only of Beowulf's heroics, the far more interesting story is the choice he makes when no one else is looking, a choice that grants him a place in myth and legend, even as it assures that every victory that follows is hollow and unsatisfying.

This isn't to suggest that the film is all moping and introspection—far from it—nor are the humanizing elements of the script particularly groundbreaking or fresh to anyone who's read a Greek tragedy or two. But it's worth stopping to appreciate that a film already stocked with carnage aplenty, a flesh-eating beast with the mind of a child (Crispin Glover has now achieved the purpose for which he was placed on this earth), a spectacular airborne battle against a dragon, and a naked CGI Angelina Jolie with scorpion-tail hair also took the time to add a bit of humanity to the sound and the fury. Without that thread of regret and fallibility, Beowulf the movie would still have been a visual treat, but in 3D it would have boasted several more dimensions than its protagonist.

Visually stunning—see it in 3D or don't see it at all—Beowulf manages to be more than just the sum of its set pieces (even the ones with the naked CGI Angelina Jolie) by anchoring its superheroics with a flawed protagonist and just the right hint of melancholy.

Beowulf
Paramount Pictures
Rated PG-13; 113 min.

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David Michael Wharton is the managing editor of CS Weekly and a contributing editor for Creative Screenwriting. He once defeated what he thought was a cannibalistic monster in hand-to-hand combat, only then realizing it was actually just his landlord. Or so argues his legal counsel.

Beowulf courtesy Paramount Pictures

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