handsome and grendel

in this CGI-animated rendition of the epic poem "beowulf", angelina jolie seduces as the monster grendel's vengeful water-demon mother--in all her naked, golden-streaked glory. (spoiler alert!)

this movie has been showing since thanksgiving, and i'm lucky to have still caught it at our movie theater. however, there were only four of us inside the theater watching it today. everyone else was with their children watching the "sold-out" kiddie flick "alvin and the chipmunks."

rewind to your english lit class days, when you first heard "beowulf" as an example of what an epic is. think vikings, scandinavia, kings and dragons, and a fearless hero named beowulf.

during the first few minutes of the film, i had squinted my eyes to confirm that what i'm seeing is pure computer animation. the details are so life-like, the action scenes eye-popping (and limb-tearing), and man, that guy was unmistakably john malkovich!

the entire movie feels like the "story part" of a role-playing video game you're playing on your game console, where you rest your control pad for a while and watch the characters talk before moving on to the next stage...but enhance the graphics quality a hundred times, and let neil gaiman co-write the screenplay, have angelina jolie (did i mention she's naked here?) charm the loincloth off of beowulf and you'll leave the theater vowing to buy the dvd!

beowulf has his share of nudity as well, in fact, he slayed grendel in his birthday suit. he looked every bit the dashing hero (*swoooon*), with "I AM BEOWULF!" as his battlecry. everytime he yelled that, though, my mind echoed back "THIS IS SPARTA!" from that other visually enthralling movie, "300."

"beowulf" surely raised the bar in CGI-animated story-telling.