Movie Log: Beowulf

So I'm watching Beowulf tonight, just to see if it lives up to its reputation. And, so far, it does -- it's melodramatic in all of the worst ways, full of the most blatant dick jokes, intensely silly, and the best object lesson in the Uncanny Valley I've ever seen.

I've got posts on two other movies half-way finished, but I see no reason to waste valuable time thinking about this movie. So I'll type a bit as the movie goes on, and post this once it's done.

The physics is rotten in this film; the gold coins fly like leaves and have no weight. The bodies are worse, if that's possible.

There might have been one or two believable figures in the entire movie, but I can't think of who they might have been. Beowulf is like a million animated Real Dolls, bouncing in variable gravity and bending in unlikely ways.

And did I mention the dick jokes?

Every character seems to have a completely different accent. Beowulf is a South London gangster and Grendel's mother is some decayed Eastern European baroness. Most of the rest have random Irish or Scottish accents; no one at all sounds at all Danish.

The subtitles can't manage to spell "Heorot" correctly.

The whole thing looks like the world's longest cut-scene from a second-rate videogame. My fingers kept itching for a controller so I could finally fight Grendel myself.

Oh, sure a horse is going to gallop over a burning, collapsing bridge and then jump a thirty-foot chasm.

I've heard the phrase "my heart was in my throat" so many times, but I guess I just never visualized it before.

And, inevitably, there's a bad pop song playing under the end credits -- I don't want to check, but I bet it's called "The Ballad of Beowulf."

I'm outta here.