laraemeadows Blog

Under discussion:

Beowulf  (2007)

Beowulf, the classic tale finally brought to animated life.  Like an untended cookie jar, Beowulf has a beautifully tempting outside but when you reach your hand in all you get is crumbs under your fingernails.

Rowdy King Hrothgar’s (Anthony Hopkins) kingdom is visited by an unspeakable monster, Grendel.  Grendel (Crispin Glover) runs amuck, ripping people limb from limb for no reason more than drinking and merriment.  King Hrothgar offers any hero who can kill Grendel half his country’s wealth.  Intrigued by glory and wealth, self-important Beowulf and fourteen of his men come from across the sea to kill Grendel.  Beowulf doesn’t know that glory and wealth won’t be the only thing he gets.

Each of the animated characters looks just like the actor who plays him.  At first I thought this would be annoying but after a while, I think it was the better choice.  Instead of Anthony Hopkins’ face popping into my mind while he’s talking, my focus is on the story, undistracted by the famous voice.  It also made the characters seem a little more realistic. 

The animation in Beowulf is fantastically realistic when the characters aren’t moving.  There are several nude scenes that sent the audience into a tizzy.  Angela Jolie, who plays Grendel’s mother, is beautifully drawn nearly naked, spared from sheer buff exposure by golden flecks.   It isn’t until the characters want to do crazy things like run, walk or fight that you see the disjointed nature of the animation.  The animators spent too much time on how the animation looked but not enough on how it moved.

All the animated booty doesn’t make up for the fact that the plot required that your train of thought not be longer than a 3 year olds.  There are more dangling plot lines than a pier in a stocked pond.  It requires you already know the Beowulf story, woefully ignores character complexities, shallow characters, is chalk-full of extraneous characters, and plot doors left so open, spiders have taken up  residence.  There is one character in particular, Unferth (John Malkovich), who is built up and given more complexities than any other character in the movie, and Unferth’s potential is dumped like a stinky diaper.  There is a pan full of sizzle, but you leave the theater hungry.

I saw the IMAX in 3D version.  There is an exorbitant amount of camera work to show how cool the 3D can be.   It’s too bad for Beowulf that we all have stomachs to be upset by the dinghy in a hurricane camera work and I haven’t gotten my sea tummy yet.   Just because you can do 3D doesn’t mean you have to overdo it.  You aren’t directing Tammy Fae Baker’s makeup!

Other than imagining sex with an animated character or a study in the potential realism of animation, there isn’t much to Beowulf.   Please, don’t see the 3D version, it’s not worth the extra dimension.

Under discussion:

Lions for Lambs  (2007)

Lions for Lambs examines the consequences of American apathy, fear mongering, and willful, mindless submission to the drum beat laid out by those whose only tool for change is the hammer of war.  While the themes are timely and meaningful, Lions for Lambs lacks resonance to make a stabbing point about our current military, political and media situation or poignant enough to make a more historical point about dispassion by citizens.

Senator Jasper Irving (Tom Cruise) calls reporter Janine Roth (Meryl Streep), to take an entire hour to explain his new plan for winning the war in Afghanistan.  Timidly and politely, Roth tries not to repeat her personal mistake when covering the run up to the Iraq War.  The soldiers involved in the new plan, Earnest Rodriquez (Michael  Peña) and Arian Finch (Derek Luke) are confronted by unexpected danger and left on a freezing mountain with only each other.   Earnest and Arian’s former college professor Stephen Malley (Robert Redford) tries to motivate his underachieving student Todd Hayes (Andrew Garfield) by recounting his experience with the two hard working students turned soldiers. 

All of the performances in Lions for Lambs can be explained in one simple word, fine.  There is nothing shameful about their performances but none of the actors rocked my socks either.  I was disappointed that such a powerful cast could produce such a lackluster, uninspired performance resting just on the edge of downright dull.   Cruise, Streep, Peña, Luke, Garfield and Redford seem to be a reasonable effort to their characters but there is a distinct lack of depth and strength to the writing.

Lions for Lambs is a question from writer Mathew Michael Carnahan to the audience; will you stand up for what you believe, give what you can, or will you tune out and make excuses for why you can’t?   Carnahan asks an important question, one we all would be wise to answer.  What Carnahan didn’t do is require an answer by stabbing the question into our conscience with a hot poker and searing it into our brains.    Carnahan’s attempts to sway the minds of those people unswayed seems more apt to reinforce the minds of those who already agree with his opinion.   There is a lack of grey area that may be a relatable character for those persons who don’t already agree with him.  In many ways it felt like an atheist trying to talk an evangelical out of their religion by saying, “Duh, stupid, there is no god.”

I am personally troubled by the lack of interest in important things, ignored by a well fed and well entertained society.  It is a question that Hollywood is perfectly suited to pose.  Lions for Lambs whispers the question to people who aren’t listening and in the end, affects nothing.

Under discussion:

Bee Movie  (2007)

Bee Movie is about a rambling bee that tries to make a difference and bucks convention.  While this movie is full of adorable bees, cute jokes and fun one-liners; the moral of the story is perplexing and depressing.

Barry B. Benson Bee (Jerry Seinfeld) faces the prospect of having to choose the life he will have for his entire life and decides to go out and see the world before deciding what his lifelong job will be.  His friend, Adam Flyman (Matthew Broderick) does his best to convince Barry not to leave the safety of the hive, but Barry won’t be swayed.  He joins the pollen collectors and heads out into the clear blue sky.  He meets Vanessa Bloome (Renee Zellweger), a human woman who saves him from death by boot.  It is with her on a trip to grocery store that he realizes the enslavement and theft of honey by humans.  Disturbed by his findings Barry decides to launch a lawsuit to protect all bee interests.  His lawsuit has unexpected consequences and he is forced to revisit his stance.

The performances in Bee Movie are nothing to write home about, with two exceptions:  Matthew Broderick and John Goodman.  Broderick is twitchy brilliance as Flyman.  His scenes are fun and charming with a side of giggles.  Goodman takes the cake though.  He plays the lawyer for big honey.  He makes the lawyer so dirty, so strange, so fantastic.  It’s hard to throw an animated character into insane silliness but he could entertain an 80 year old with this performance.

Seinfeld and Zellweger were humdrum and uninspired.  Jerry Seinfeld plays Jerry Seinfeld but with an underlying buzz in Bee Movie.  If you are like TV guide and think he is the best thing since bread was leavened, you’ll love him in Bee Movie.  If you’re like me, a person of taste and sophistication and one of the sane people of the world, you’ll find his performance a little shallow and a little uneven.  Renee Zellweger isn’t any better.  In Bee Movie, Bloome never really blossoms into a full character with a personality of her own.  Zellweger’s voice isn’t even particularly recognizable.  If you were to describe Vanessa Bloome you would find it difficult because she has no real definable traits.  This is half Zellweger and half eyebrow furling writing. 

Children’s movies insightful to society because they act as a magnifying glass into the values deemed important by a group of people.  They are supposed to convey the most important ideas in the simplest way possible.  So when I saw Bee Movie, I was stunned by the unbelievable moral of Bee Movie.  Barry makes a mistake which nearly causes the end of the world.   His mistake is what we might praise Abraham Lincoln for when we revisit the moral triumph of the world.  (Excuse the vague references but I don’t want to spoil the movie.)  I left wondering if the moral of the story is to be what your parents want you to be or don’t try to change anything because you might end the world. 

The world in Bee Movie isn’t anything phenomenal either.  There are no scenes where I thought the animation was great, nor are there any that made me want to burn the film.  The animation can best be described as fine.

Bee Movie does have a lot of chuckles and even a few hearty laughs.  The children in the theater didn’t act up at all and were completely mesmerized by the story at all times.   I was disappointed that the moral of the story was odd enough that I left the movie uncomfortable with the subtext, because otherwise the movie is fun.