Thursday, July 26, 2007

"Return of the Digital Dead"


Why?....why, why, why???? Why do you do this to us Mr Zemeckis? Do you not like animators?...actors?...the general viewing public? Huh? You almost had me thinking their might be hope for "performance crapture" with the damn near brilliant Monster House...so why go back to the land of Polar Depress. Seems that's just what Mr Zemechis has done with his latest offering, Beowulf. Personally I think Zack Snyder's approach with 300 would have been perfect for this. Don't give me the corpse of Anthony Hopkins spouting stiff dialog...give me the real thing spouting stiff dialog. Take all that time, money and effort and surround your world class actors with a believable world to tell a compelling story in. Ultimately it feels like the failings of a flawed and untrusting director. Not secure enough to commit to anything but wanting control over everything. Yeah, this technique gives him control over everything in the scene...to find that "sweet spot" we're told...I've yet to see that "sweet spot" in either Polar Express or any of this footage for Beowulf. And this isn't me knocking the process as a whole...like I said before, I LOVE Monster House. It's a shame that more exploration into stylizing his world and characters wasn't put into this project because this could have had tons of potential...tons. And on a side note...why the hell would I want to see a dead eyed Angelina Jolie when i can rent a handfull of films that show the real her.....naked.

6 comments:

pjleffelman said...

On the plus side, we have a whole new sub-genre of zombie films emerging.

Maciek Gliwa said...

Hey Matt,
I totally agree. I don't understand why they decided to make such a film, sounds like a total waste of money and energy.

Erik Westlund said...

That was a particularly good one pjleffelman. Cynical but good.

Bert said...

well.. are there that many Jollie's.. hmm.. hmm..movie?
anyway, I came up to think about this. What if we "animators" animate those "realistic looking" characters by "HAND"? It will look good? oh- There is one! Shrek! Hmm-

Unknown said...

HEY Bert!!! I don't like the idea of trying to recreate real life...little to do with the performance crapture...hell, I loved Monster House.

Alex Fleisig said...

i have decided that you will still go see it anyway... as will we all... the power of morbid curiosity is far too strong