LastNight: Beowulf at the IMAX 3-D Metreon

Better Than: Reading it in Olde Englishe
Download: The trailer.

What a huge block of retarded American cheese!

The only thing more retarded than this movie, is the huge, goofy 3-D glasses the Metreon on 4th and Mission gives you when they take your ticket. Put them on and you look as dumb as Beowulf sounds. Yet, somehow, the act of wearing the retarded 3-D glasses and staring at this retarded production cancels the retardation out. I had a great time laughing at the preposterousness of it all yesterday, but I only recommend seeing this movie in IMAX 3-D.

First off, the film is 40 percent longer than the original story, because

the original Beowulf is kinda short. Grendel and his mom terrorize the Danes. Beowulf shows up, kicks ass, and the epic poem ends. That does not a blockbuster make. We have to load it full of bullshit meditations on heroism and the death of the ancient hero vis a vis the rise of Christianity. Beowulf raises these issues, and actually succeeds in making us all dumber about them by muddying the water with a bunch of meaningless one-liners.

However, there are some interesting subtexts in Beowulf that are more fun to play with.

1) Let's start with how the whole problem comes down to the Danes not doing an Environmental Impact Report on their new mead hall. For if they did an EIR, they would've known the hall's sonic impacts on native fauna could be costly. Grendel amounts to a self-righteous monster NIMBY who's pissed off about all the noise his neighbors are making and takes matters into his own ginormous hands. If a full EIR was done, the Danes would've sited their hall facing 90 degrees to the east or the west so the sound wouldn't carry directly up to sensitive-eared Grendel's echoey lair.

Two: this movie is a damning indictment of heterosexuality. From Beowulf losing his swimming race to fuck a mermaid, to his desire for eternal life via genetic and semiotic propagation of his "name". Not to mention -- both monsters (and the carnage they cause) arise from the loins of heterosexual males. They get dick-duped by a shape-shifting dragon who lures them into her Goldschläger-flecked vulva with images of Angelina Jolie's rotoscoped tits and ass.

This hetero indictment is seared into the final scene -- when Beowulf's lifelong and chaste comrade (Read: FLAMER) stares hard at Jolie as she tempts him. Though the carnival ride tries to leave the ending open, it is apparent that Beowulf's secret fag friend wants nothing to do with that shit.

"Bitch, please," his eyes seem to say. "You keep your spirit shit in the water, and I'll keep my dick in my pants. And this muthafuckin kingdom will be peaceful from here on out. I'm tired, tired, tired of this shit."

Lastly, going to the Metreon Imax 3-D and bitching about a movie being derivative only makes me look like as ass, but mother fuck. Even the previews were rip-offs of rip-offs. Beowulf is basically the video game God of War, plus Shadow of the Colossus plus the movie '300' which was based on the comic book, which was based on the epic. Beowulf is basically "God of the 300 Colossus."

On that note: there were previews for "Lord of the Harry Narnia" and "Night of the Living 28 Days Later".

God help us all.

Critic's Notebook:
Personal Bias: Degree in English Literature
Random Detail: The hot cougar sitting next to me brought her underage kid and pined for a fat chronic blunt. Why is irresponsibility so hot, hot, hot?

--David Downs