jürgen fauth’s muckworld

Robert Zemeckis’ high-tech “performance capture” adaptation of the Old English poem turns actors–Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Robin Wright Penn, John Malkovich, Angelina Jolie–into rubbery action figures. Only Crispin Glover, covered in a disgusting, festering texture, manages to infuse some sort of twisted soul into his Grendel. I saw this in 3-D, which is sorta groovy if you’ve taken some preventive aspirin, but it also further increases the sense of artificiality. The action sequences have all the excitement of a video game cut scene.

Beowulf is only one of a slew of recent movies that wouldn’t have been possible without The Lord of the Rings, and Zemeckis lifts dozens of shots directly from Peter Jackson. Of course, Tolkien in turn would be unthinkable without the Anglo-Saxon poem — and so we come full circle.

Long ago, in the Age of Heroes, I wrote an essay about “hyperfiction” that used the cheap carnival effects of early 3-D movies as metaphor for the teething troubles of a new form. I was tickled to see that even at this late stage, 3-D still means “Poles in Your Face,” along with all manners of swords, naked torsos, dripping saliva, and flaming arrows. It’s true that Neil Gaiman’s script manages to put a somewhat interesting spin on the original epic, but first and foremost, Beowulf is self-satisfied spectacle. I’d rather play God of War. Opens Friday.

Beowulf. Robert Zemeckis, 2007. **

• 300
• Beowulf and Grendel
• Beowulf at Rotten Tomatoes
• Wikipedia
• The trailer:

There are exactly three reasons why this competition doc is much more enjoyable than The King of Kong, this summer’s other film about major-league nerds making fools of themselves:

1. Unlike The King of Kong, which wimps out in the third act, Air Guitar Nation tells a complete story, from the inception of the U.S. Air Guitar Championships and qualifying rounds in New York and L.A. to the World Championships in Oulu, Finland.
2. The contestants are in on the joke. King of Kong’s joystick wigglers Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell seem to think beating a thirty-year-old video game actually matters. When C-Diddy and Björn Türoque do their thing, they know they’re being dorks, and they love every minute.
3. Nobody but the judges sit and watch guys jump over flaming barrels for two hours, waiting for them to screw up. Unlike Donkey Kong, Air Guitar is a spectator sport, and there’s always a crowd ready to rock.

Air Guitar Nation. Alexandra Lipsitz, 2006. ***

• Air Guitar Nation is now out on DVD
• Air Guitar Nation on Rotten Tomatoes: 83%
• Here’s C-Diddy:

“If you want to write your name into history, you have to pay the price!” Tough talk, befitting, perhaps, a general exhorting his troops before battle. Too bad they belong to Billy Mitchell, the former world champion of Donkey Kong, a man with an inflated sense of his own accomplishments. Seth Gordon’s documentary The King of Kong takes us behind the scenes of the cut-throat world of competitive video gaming, and it’s not a pretty sight.

Everybody sounds like The Simpsons‘ Milhouse when they say things like: “He threatened my Missile Command score!” but it’s dead serious for the men who play these games on a world-class level (and with the exception of the elderly Qbert lady, they are all men.) When long term champion Billy Mitchell is challenged by newcomer Steve Wiebe, an epic tale of skill and clashing egos develops.

There’s not a lot of actual game play in The King of Kong, and the reason is obvious: retro games like Ms. Pac-Man and Donkey Kong aren’t a lot of fun to watch, at least not for the hours it takes these world-class nerds and “borderline autistic” personalities to complete a game. Instead, we get to meet a motley cast of contenders and organizers, including Walter Day, who runs the league with questionable ethics, and wives and girlfriends who clearly wish their men had more interesting hobbies. Steve Wiebe’s children, neglected while daddy’s trying to break the high score, offer the sharpest indictments of the gamer’s passion.

But I review movies, not hobbies, and as a bit of big screen reality TV, The King of Kong is compelling enough, at least for a while: the rivalries, challenges, suspicion of fraud, and naked jealousy on display are all the stuff of good drama. The material is ripe for a blockbuster comedy, and I’m willing to bet good money that somebody’s already working on adapting The King of Kong for Jack Black and Steve Carell. The documentary, however, ultimately gets away from director Seth Gordon. The King of Kong, drawn out in the beginning, is over too soon, and what should have been the third-act reversal appears as slapped-on text over the credits–a frustrating and somewhat inexplicable ending to a movie that just barely won me over. The King of Kong opens on August 17.

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. Seth Gordon, 2007. **

• Official Site
• Trailer