A valiant effort

Rating: 7/10 (3 December 2007)

Adapted very loosely from the original poem - without which we would not have the plot archetype of "band of heroic warriors travel into unknown territory to fight an unknown menace they may not be able to handle" that served writers so well in the centuries that followed, from the sword & sorcery epics to hard hitting science fiction action films like ALIENS (1986) and PREDATOR (1987) - big rugged muscle bound Beowulf (Ray Winstone) is asked by fat old has-been turned drunken degenerate King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) to kill a pesky monster known as Grendel (Crispin Glover) that's been terrorizing Hrothgar's kingdom. Beowulf does as asked - in the nude no less - then goes to kill the big whiny voice brute's mother (Angelina Jolie). The result? Grendle's mom, who appears to be a hot mama shape-shifter, seduces Beowulf, has sexual intercourse with him and then curses him. Hrothgar declares Beowulf his heir, since he has no sons of his own, leaves the kingdom and his lovely, love lorn wife Queen Wealthow (Robin Wright Penn) to big B before committing suicide. Years later, an old but still very buff Beowulf finds he must confront a dragon, which turns out to be the shape-shifting son he had with Grendel's mom. Turns out Hrothgar made the same mistake as Beowulf many years ago - he thought with his balls instead of with his brains, slept with Grendel's mom, Grendel was the son of that encounter, and being terrorized by Grendel was Hrothgar's curse, and probably another reason why his wife wouldn't sleep with him, besides the fact that - yet again - Wealthow was a beautiful young lady trapped in a loveless marriage to a man old enough to be her father (or possibly grandfather). By this point, old Beowulf's relationship with the equally old queen is also on the rocks and he's taken to sleeping around with wenches (one particular wench played by Alison Lohman), just as Hrothgar did, but before he goes off to fight the dragon, he tries to reconcile with her. Beowulf fights the dragon - cutting his arm off in the process - dies a hero's death, names his long time sensible best friend Wiglaf (Brendan Gleeson) to take his place as king, then at the end Wiglaf is confronted by Grendel's mother, and it is left ambiguous as to whether Wiglaf will succumb to temptation just as Beowulf and Hrothgar did, or if Wiglaf will have the good sense to stay away from the horrid she-demon, thus ending the cycle.
Entertaining as throw away entertainment, but those looking for an honest adaptation of the original poem may be disappointed with the liberties taken. Though Beowulf is still one tough cookie, he's not quite as heroic as the original poem made him out to be, as the screenplay chooses to play him up as a flawed, self-loathing & regretful anti-hero, probably in hopes of making him more appealing to the cynical, jaded audiences of the 21st century, yet you can't help but wonder if that basically defeats the purpose of what his character stands for in the original poem (films such as "Troy" and "Superman Returns" had a similar problem). Beowulf fighting naked came across as unintentionally funny seeing as how they had to keep hiding his frontal private parts with whatever objects are handy (while it's true he chose to fight without weapons against Grendel in the book, he did not strip himself naked to fight the monster); other bits of nudity (both male & female) or just outright exploitation (zooming in on a bar woman's twitching bosom) feels even more crass here than it would in live action, and reeks of desperation for attention, as if to say "Look! We're pure CGI but we're doing stuff with CGI that wasn't done in Shrek or Toy Story!", a desperation that would make even Ralph Bakshi (who made a similar attempt with animation & radioscopy decades ago) roll his eyes. Also, the original poem contained no romantic subplot between Beowulf and the queen, Hrothgar and his wife did have children, Beowulf killed Grendel's mom (he wore armor BTW) and while Beowulf did become king and die fighting a dragon, he became king of a different area, and the dragon was not his offspring. For all these creative liberties, they may as well have just changed all the names of the characters and called it something else (thinkg the 2004 bomb "King Arthur").
Beowulf himself looked quite real at times, as did certain props and backgrounds, but other characters were not so fortunate, as the CGI stop motion bit is clearly not completely ironed out yet (empty eyes, vacant stares, puffy faces, etc). The action sequences are quite good though; when they cut loose, they really cut loose. The "acting" as it were is decent. Film tries hard, I will give it that. Probably best watched as a separate entity unto itself than as a true adaptation of the poem.