Beowulf- The World of Cinema Changes Forever

As a film, Robert Zemekis's new film Beowulf is okay- maybe even a little bad. The CGI on the human characters still suffers from the "Polar Express" syndrome- instead of life-like they come across as a bit stiff and creepy and the entire film is just Talk, Fight Grendal, Naked Angelina Jolie, Talk, Fight Dragon, credits.
Still, as I sat in the theatre Friday night I could only think one thing- I'm watching the 21st century's Citizen Kane. Not because of the plot- or even because of the CGI in general. No, Beowulf is a massively important movie because of the leap forward it represents in immersive 3-D. And yes, I am fully aware of and willing to wallow in the irony of using one of the world's oldest stories as the vehicle for an unprecedented technological breakthrough.
I know IMAX has been making these 3-D movies for a while now and this summer's Harry Potter's finale was in 3-D too. But in these cases the 3-D hasn't been all that different from what they did when I was a kid. The best example was the Creature from the Black Lagoon. It was broadcast on TV and you would wear glasses you bought with a Slurpee at the 7-11.
The thing that marked these films as 3-D was a clunky process where you were basically dealing with 3 layers of field. The foreground, mid ground, and background. The foreground would be used for things suddenly sticking out at you (popular in such movies as Jaws 3-D) the mid-ground is where all the actual movement takes place, and the background was static. Even this summer's Harry Potter basically stuck to this mode- although they were able to stretch out the mid-ground by using the stark black, silver, and blue color palette of the Ministry of Magic.
Beowulf is entirely different. In Beowulf, there are many more layers visible. Instead of just 3 layers of 3D- they're now able to create a full depth of field so that when you are looking into the mead-house- you are looking INTO the mead-house- each layer of tables has a 3-D appearance, all of the cups and plates and people in the room also have a 3-D appearance. There is genuine depth of field- something that has eluded every other 3D presentation I've ever seen.
But that's not all- in addition to creating these unprecedented number of visual layers, Zemekis's team has also managed to get the characters to move between these layers with stunning fluidity- especially considering the newness of this technology. The battle scenes show off this aspect the best- and indeed- the film glories in them. There are five or six shots where Grendel takes a hapless soldier and hurls him from the background into the foreground- just to see the effect at work. The dragon fight at the climax also features stunning examples of such transitions.
Beowulf is good enough that you can begin to see the potential of such a technology. More than anything it makes my mouth salivate for James Cameron's Avatar and the first time Pixar steps into the realm of digital 3D.
Sure there are flaws to the process visible in Beowulf- characters occasionally "ghosted" out where you could see thin translucent phantoms on the screen- and some of the transitions were clumsy- but overall it looked fantastic. I think in 50 years we'll look back on Beowulf in the way they look back on Citizen Kane or Birth of a Nation - both of which were remarkable technical achievements- despite one being a tad boring and the other being an atrocious racist screed- but still they are recognized as milestones that- once passed- you can never come back from.
Hail Beowulf- the first film in an all new generation of cinema.