Beowulf
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence including disturbing images, some sexual material and nudity.
reviewed by Christopher Lyon
Take a 1,000-year-old heroic poem about a dragon-slayer. Give the story a reworking from screenwriters for “Pulp Fiction” and “Stardust.” Hand it off to the director of “Back to the Future,” “Forrest Gump,” and “Contact.” Feed it through the cool-but-creepy CGI motion-capture technology of “The Polar Express.” And the “Beowulf” that comes out the other end is like nothing before it -- including the book.
Story
The film falls somewhere between “based on” and “inspired by” the famous work of Olde English fiction/poetry. The characters names and basic relationships remain mostly unchanged, but what they do in the story alters dramatically once the tale gets rolling.
Here, Beowulf (Ray Winstone) and his band of heroic Geat warriors arrive in the Danish kingdom of Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) to slay a local monster, grab the glory and the gold, and head back home. But there are secrets, and secrets make things complicated.
The monster Grendel (Crispin Glover) does indeed show up in the great hall Hrothgar has built for his people to drink mead, make merry, and indulge in, as he says, “fornication.” As before, the hideous beast (dripping with puss and blood, impervious to new wounds but agonized by loud noises) arrives to rip men in half and make snacks of them. Waiting for him this time, though, is a naked Beowulf. Yes, naked. The two do battle, and the monster is fatally wounded.
The celebrations follow, and the glory-hungry Beowulf ads the kill to his résumé, eyeing the king’s beautiful, barren wife Wealthow (Robin Wright Penn) for approval. But the story has just begun. Grendel has a mom, a water demon who lives up in an underground lake and takes the appearance of a naked woman (Angelina Jolie). Yes, naked again. Furious at the death of her son (fathered by a key human character), she takes revenge on Beowulf’s warriors, drawing him to her lair. Once there, his plans to kill her are complicated by her attempts to seduce him and her promises of power, wealth, fame, and long life.
Beowulf returns to the kingdom with secrets of his own.
Verdict
Two things worked for me in “Beowulf.” One is the film’s ridiculously exciting last act, in which Beowulf fights a dragon -- in flight, under water, and around a castle -- trying desperately to kill the beast before it can kill those he loves. In that roller-coaster sequence, the whole 3-D CG animation finally comes together both in looking convincing (and cool!) and in carrying some emotional weight.
I say finally, because the motion-capture technology (think of actors performing in bodysuits with little sensors all over them to record their movements into a computer) feels like a novelty to me for the first half of the film. The people just aren’t quite human enough, yet, to make the technology disappear into the storytelling. I was always thinking about the animation process while watching the characters walk and talk and fight and bleed. It’s cool (and a little weird-looking), but it’s also a distraction from actually caring about what going on.
Fortunately, the film is full of great actors delivering decent performances behind their animated masks. When I finally (mostly) forgot about the animation toward the end, they helped me begin to care about the characters -- and the film’s big, emotional worldview messages.
Those messages are the other thing that worked for me. More on that below.
As for the rating, many -- including Angelina Jolie -- have commented on the fact that if “Beowulf” had been a live-action film, it would be rated “R.” In fact, she reportedly said that she called her family to warn them about just how nude her character is in the movie. I wonder how much the producers would have paid her for that kind of publicity. It’s got to be worth at least a million extra in ticket sales, doesn’t it?
The MPAA may have given her full frontal/rear nudity a pass because the “details” are mostly smoothed out (kind of like Barbie dolls), and because the animation feels so inhuman. In addition, muscular Beowulf is seen naked from behind, but his front side is always strategically (and comically, I thought) blocked from view.
Oh, and there’s lots of violence -- also not quite real-feeling -- but full of dismemberments, sword wounds, spurting blood, high body count, a suicide, and reports of humans burned alive.
Worldview
[WARNING: SPOILERS! To get into the film’s worldview, I’ve got to talk about some of those secrets. Don’t read on if you don’t want to know.]
One place where the film parts company with the original story of Beowulf is in his relationship with Grendel’s mother. Instead of merely killing her, as he does in the ancient story, the hero now succumbs to her seduction. Instead of being a kind of Christ figure -- as some scholars suggest of the original hero who defeats demons and monsters and sacrifices himself for his people -- Beowulf becomes a sinner, a man who makes a deal with a devil to satisfy his own appetites for sex, glory, power, and money.
What that costs him and those he loves becomes the heart of the story. He does in fact become a king, known around the world for his bravery and power. Challengers cross oceans for the chance to defeat him in battle -- but they never do. He has sex with many women, beginning with the demon herself and continuing to the queen and (presumably) a long line of mistresses. The demon delivers on her promise. Beowulf gets what he wants.
But he is robbed of all of the joy such a successful life might have brought to him. He knows his victories are not his alone, but the result of the demonic agreement. His true love for the queen is ever tainted by his act with the demon. He sees his whole life -- his legend -- as a lie. He lives with guilt and shame, something for which he tries to blame the spread of Christianity. But he knows in his heart the guilt is his own. He knows he has become of the monster. And in the end, the fruits of that “fornication” with the evil demon leads to the death of many innocent people.
I don’t know that director Robert Zemekis means for Beowulf to be an illustration of the high cost of indulging in temptation to sin, but for those listening through a biblical worldview it’s all there.
The Bible writer James wrote: “Each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” (1:14-15)
That’s a pretty good summary of what happens to Beowulf. Dragged away by his desire for sex, glory, and power, his act with Grendel’s mother results in a conception. She gives birth to the powerful representation of his sin -- a fire-breathing, death-dealing dragon bent on destroying everything Beowulf loves -- a dragon of his own making.
A victim of this dragon (laid out on a kind of a cross) is given a message for Beowulf. He yells in the “hero’s” face about the “sins of the fathers.” He is quoting from Old Testament passages like Exodus 34:7: “He [God] does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.” Beowulf’s sin reigns fire on the children of his kingdom.
In spite of Beowulf’s heroic last battle, the film thankfully ends in a kind of hopelessness. The demon remains. She seeks a new victim -- and new offspring with which to bring death on the world. What’s to stop her?
The answer is found all the way back at the beginning of the film as two men stand relieving themselves and discussing this “new” religion of Christianity. One says to the other something like, “They believe if you take the Christ God as your only God, even when you die, you’ll go on living.”
Exactly. We all follow in the footsteps of Beowulf, giving into temptation and reaping its ugly consequences. But Christians then and now believe that Jesus, the truest hero, lived without ever sinning. He rejected the devil’s best temptations then died to pay the price for all of our sins. We might not escape the dragons of our own making, but we can be forgiven for making them. We can be changed. And we can escape the eternal price for birthing death so many times over.
Questions
• Have you ever read -- or been forced to read -- a version of the original work “Beowulf”? If so, what did you think of it?
• What did you think of the animation in the film? Did the 3-D effect work for you? Did the look of the film keep you from getting into the story?
• How do you feel about all the nudity? Do you wish they would have covered up the characters a bit more -- or do you not really care since it’s all “fake”?
• Do you think the film has a truthful message? Do you think all the comments about Christianity were anti-Christian? Do you think it accurately captured the consequence of giving into sin?
• If someone asked you to describe how you believe we can be forgiven from all of our sinful choices, what would you say? Do you have a short, five-minute answer to that question?