'Beowulf': Why animate?

Beowulf is back!

And yeah, it's that Beowulf you supposedly read in school. Remember? It was that dense, wandering poem in Old English that spoke of how the great Beowulf sold his soul for power.

Still don't remember? How about that devil son Grendel or the fire-eating dragons? Beginning to ring a bell? For me, I thought God and I had an agreement after I finished that paper for Mr. Hodgdon's English class. I'll go on the assumption that I failed somehow to keep up my end of the bargain, for now.

At any rate, "Beowulf" must really be something in 3-D. And it must be incredible in IMAX 3-D. So why are they showing it at theaters in 2-D? Without spears and dragons and body parts seemingly flying into the audience, it's just a weirdly animated movie that seems real but isn't.

"Seems real" is the key phrase. If you saw the Tom Hanks animated film "The Polar Express," you know what I'm talking about. The actors dress in outfits that contain computer sensors and then act out the movie. In post-production they take the natural movement of the actors and marry them with the computer generated characters, which in turn makes the digital characters act and move like real people. Sort of.

The thing is they're not real and they don't act real, which throws the action off track when the characters try for a dramatic moment -- or rather a human moment. Their hair, their eyes, their facial ticks are so close to the real thing, I don't understand the reason for the animation. It seemed clear that the actors did a fine job, but when they are "animated" it creates a false affectation as if from an overly dramatic moment in a video game. And maybe it is because of the ubiquitous video game, animated "human" characters are becoming such the phenomenon. As of yet, they just don't engender empathy.

Warner Bros. spent more than $70 million and hired more than 400 people to make this film, and except for few easily created digital monsters, real actors and real sets would have worked better and been much more exciting and believable.

Of course this new type of animation might work well with 3-D, which is supposed to be the next big thing again. But what's the point if it's not showing it in 3-D?

FYI: As for the PG rating, please! For all its graphic violence, "animated nudity" and suggestiveness, it's clearly on the R side of PG-13.