Beowulf (2007)

Overall rating from 1 to 100: 69

O Masterpiece (100)
O Excellent (75-99)
X Rental (60-74)
O OK (50-59)
O Mediocrity (30-49)
O Avoid (1-29)

Review by Jason Pyles / November 19, 2007

The first thing you should know about “Beowulf” is that its MPAA rating is inappropriate, in every sense of the word. If you avoid R-rated movies, and are careful to not see R-rated movies parading as PG-13 movies, then you’ll want to avoid “Beowulf” altogether. Despite its PG-13 rating, it’s an R film, plain and simple. I can’t tell you which it has the most of: violence, gore, nudity or blatant sexual innuendo.

Even so, despite my personal sensitivities, I realize that not every filmgoer minds these things in a PG-13 film. My chief complaint is that parents depend on the MPAA to help them select appropriate films for their kids. The MPAA’s rating of movies like “Beowulf” represents a betrayal of parents’ trust, if that still exists. Whereas, an R rating gives us fair warning that anything short of explicit, hard-core pornography could be found in such a film, including violence, torture, gore and wall-to-wall profanity. Come on, MPAA, let’s call ‘em like we see ‘em.

Enough of that rant ... on to others. Setting its rating aside, “Beowulf” tells a neat story. And it is precisely for those who enjoy fantasy films, such as “Clash of the Titans” (1981) and “The Beastmaster” (1982), that I have still given “Beowulf” a decent rating of 69, which means it’s rental-worthy. In fact, because “Beowulf” has the best dragon-fighting scene I’ve ever seen on film, it’s worth renting solely for that battle.

And for the record, and you can quote me on this, the absolute worst dragon-slaying scene I’ve ever seen on film was the lame, wimp-out, sell-out, off-camera, so-called “battle” in “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” (2005). There’s even better dragon action in “Reign of Fire” (2002) and “Dragonheart” (1996). Heck, there’s even better dragon action in “Shrek” (2001) and “Pete’s Dragon” (1977).

The setting is Denmark, A.D. 507. King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) is afflicted by an ignominious curse: When his subjects gather in his grand Meat Hall to eat, drink and be with Mary, a grotesque demon with ultra-sensitive hearing named Grendel (Crispin Glover) crashes the king’s party by unleashing lethal rampages.

Fearful, angry and troubled, the king puts a price on the demon’s head. The handsome offer attracts a legendary, overseas monster-killer named Beowulf (Ray Winstone). And we get to watch the warrior challenge Grendel and his temptress, water-demon mother (Angelina Jolie).

Director Robert Zemeckis employs the same, eerie “performance capture” technique that he used for “The Polar Express” (2004). Performance capture is a new format that Zemeckis developed, according to a press kit, in which the filmmakers use digital sensors attached to the actors’ faces and bodies (using a form-fitting Lycra suit) to input the data from their performance into computers, rendering a life-like, CGI re-creation for the big screen. So, even though the film is computer-animated, it often looks real.

Richard Barsam’s book, “Looking at Movies” (2007), mentions that some viewers and critics respond negatively to this weird, life-like animation. This negative response is attributed, according to Barsam, to something called “uncanny valley,” which is a theory used to explain why we “react negatively to robotic designs that mimic human appearance and mannerisms too faithfully.”

This all-CGI approach allows the filmmakers to incorporate monsters, super-human abilities and gore seamlessly into the rest of the movie; but in truth, this can already be done with live-action films. So, I guess it’s novel, but I still prefer live-action for portraying verisimilitude.

Alas, perhaps a mom like Angelina Jolie wouldn’t have otherwise been willing, at this point in her career, to be a gold-leafed nude demon that resembles an Oscar statue with more curves and a tail. According to the Internet Movie Database’s trivia page for “Beowulf,” Angelina Jolie revealed in an interview that she was “shocked to see how nude she really was, to the point that she said she was reluctant to allow Brad Pitt and her children to see the movie.”

But hey, Angelina, it’s OK to let kids as young as 13 attend ... just ask the MPAA.

Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Anthony Hopkins / Angelina Jolie / John Malkovich
113 min. Fantasy / Action
MPPA: PG-13 (for intense sequences of violence including disturbing images, some sexual material and nudity)

U.S. release date: November 16, 2007
Copyright 2007. 218