i saw I Am Legend last night...

So here is my review of Beowulf.

The movie was created using an amped up version of the same softwares and technology used to make The Polar Express. The animation style of The Polar Express managed to impress but creep the hell out of most people.
I read an interesting article in Wired magazine that explained why. It stated that research has been done showing the nearer human animation gets to photo realistic, without being 100% precise, the more disturbing it is.
In other words, when Pixar animates a toy, and presents it as an animated toy, our minds pick up the behavior and nuances in the animation that is like us. We connect with the toy on an emotional level, because we recognize the similarities only. A little roll of the eyes or a subtle shoulder shrug and there is a click in our brains that make human-y feelings of love and joy and understanding.
When someone attempts to animate a human form, and does not do it in a cartoonish style, like The Incredibles, for instance, our minds stop seeing that which is right and which connects us to the character, and starts seeing what is wrong.
We're seeing what our mind perceives as an actual human, but one which is broken in some way. Our subconscious view says, this guy has an illness of some kind, or, this guy is insane, or, this is an animated corpse I'm looking at.
I had the animated corpse reaction to The Polar Express. All these guys flailing about with no change to their facial expressions at all. Just creeeeepy.
I'd love to credit the damned article, or the research. I'd love to read it all again, cause they had a neat bell curve that showed emotional connection response as it related to photorealism.
We connect more with a well handled sock-puppet than we do with the guys serving hot chocolate on The Polar Express.
Problem is I can't find either the article or the research. If you stumble across it, let me know.
They got it closer on Beowulf. It's less creeepy as long as you look at the primary characters only, who must have had banks and banks of computers dedicated to them. I still see what's wrong a lot of the time, because I have an illness that does not allow me to just look at something and enjoy it. I have to pull details out that no one cares about.
Here was a weird detail. In order to make a human face look real, you have to pay close attention to facial hair. I'm not talking about beards or mustaches. I'm talking about fine, almost invisible hairs. They guys making Beowulf went crazy with the fine almost invisible hairs. There are a lot of them.
I know back in the times when the film's story took place, there was much less effort put into self-maintenance, but, two of the main characters had all kinds of little hairs growing out the tips of their noses. This is especially apparent in the 3D version, I guess, 'cause it was really bothering me. Who has a crop of little hairs growing on the tip of their nose?
Anyway, for the primary characters, the animation is appallingly good. It's so close to film, you almost wonder why they bother.
Ah.
Well.

Here's a pic of the character of Beowulf:


Here's a pic of the guy who supplied the voice, Ray Winstone:


CG trumps going to the gym, any day.
However, Angelina looks better in real life, in my opinion.

Let's see. Grendel was scary. And he was played by Crispin Glover, who is scary.

The screenplay was co-written by Neil Gaiman, who is one of my favorite writer-y guys. If you haven't read American Gods, go do it right now. Great book.
How could such an accomplished writer allow not one, not two, but THREE slowly building, single-person, sarcastic clap instances into one movie.
You really shouldn't used this hack thing even one time, really. But three?

This isn't exactly what I'm talking about, but I thought it was cool someone put it together. Horrible.