Forget about where all the cowboys have gone. What happened to the steely eyed half naked thanes? Beowulf is all sinewy muscle and white toothed snarls, which is pretty impressive since he’s CGI. The movie recalls a time steeped in blood, magic, and bravado. Beowulf is truly bigger than life and thanks to the risque scenes and 3-D spectacle I sometimes expected to find out just how big. Let me tell you that that is a disconcerting feeling when watching an animated film especially considering the closest the Disney movies I grew up on came to being racy was Ariel’s sea shell brassier.
Beowulf is based on the old poem of the same name. The main and most significant difference being that the poem never had Angelina Jolie. In the movie she provides the inspiration and voice for Grendel‘s mother; a creature of dark magic that excels in trickery, seduction, and apparently bad Russian accents. Momma Grendel just wants to be left alone in her cave to bathe in her underground lake filled with treasure.
However, momma G’s retirement bliss is cut short because her crossbred son, Grendel, insists on pestering his father’s people whenever they party in the Mead Hall. I guess if your father were a king who got smashed and whored it up while leaving you abandoned in a cold dank cave you would be a tad bitter too. Sure, Grendel is a bit on the homely side, but it’s nothing an extreme makeover couldn’t cure. Those people work miracles.
Sadly, Beowulf puts that dream to rest forever, along with Grendel, after their bare assed naked brawl by torch light. Grendel crawls home to die and his momma swears vengeance. She doesn’t even have to leave the cave to get it either as Beowulf comes striding inside to rid the world of her kind. Her kind being voice actors with bad foreign accents. Which should be a lesson for voice actors everywhere: master it or face the wrath of sword swinging critics.
Yet, just like Brad Pitt, Beowulf succumbs to the feminine wiles of Jolie. He leaves the cave with an afterglow that should be bottled and made into a cologne. With promises of wealth and a kingdom all his own, why shouldn’t he smile? In exchange Jolie gets a new bun in the oven to replace the child Beowulf killed which brings up a lot of murky family issues that could probably be resolved in a Lifetime Movie of the Week starring Meredith Baxter Birney or Lindsay Wagner. Beowulf and Momma Grendel would’ve probably been better off flying to Cambodia and adopting. Whoops, too late for that.
Years later the land is once again in danger and once again it’s the sins of the father bringing all the doom and gloom. Baby Beowulf comes home to air his daddy issues and by air I mean flame spewing village torching. Beowulf slays his son and save the day, but ends up dying in the process. As nefarious plots go I’m not sure I understand the point, but maybe momma Grendel just wanted a story good enough for Jerry Springer.
In the end Beowulf is dead. His son is dead. And Jolie is looking for her next baby daddy. If that isn’t a reason to see this movie, what is?
