Another film I was inspired to watch from my recent discovery of the Going Medieval podcast on History Hit is the 2007 animated version of Beowulf.  One thing I have learned from some of the episodes is the importance of this roughly 1,500-year-old epic poem to understanding European culture of the first millennium.  At the same time, I doubt the majority of people who saw this in theaters, or watch it at home, care about its historical value.  They want to see the implied violence of the ancient ballad actualized on the big screen.  Other than what I have already discussed, I chose it because I wanted to discuss its value to a Christian viewer in terms of it being a cautionary tale.  It has those themes in spades, but I had forgotten that it also includes concrete references to Christianity.  Those allusions are a major departure from the source material, and stretch the bounds of believability, historically speaking.  Then again, we are talking about a version of Denmark where there are monsters that can morph into dragons or humans.  Thus, what does one make of all this?  I do not know.  You tell me.

Before we meet Beowulf (voiced by Ray Winstone), King Hrothgar (voiced by Anthony Hopkins) presides over his people in his Danish mead hall.  The carousing and singing of his mighty deeds and riches carries out of the building and across the valley to the scaly ears of Grendel (voiced by Crispin Glover).  He does not like the raucous revelers and decides to do something about it.  Bursting into the celebration, he commences to brutally killing many of King Hrothgar’s subjects, in some cases tearing them apart with his bare hands as he towers about them.  The only one that checks the slaughter is King Hrothgar himself, standing up to Grendel and challenging the disfigured beast to a duel.  Instead, Grendel retreats.  The reason he backs down is because King Hrothgar is Grendel’s father.  As the Danes pick up the pieces in the aftermath of the attack, we are given a confirmation of sorts when Queen Wealtheow (voiced by Robin Wright) refuses to sleep with her older husband the king.  When pressed, she reminds him of his past sin, having slept with Grendel’s mother (voiced by Angelina Jolie).  To solve his problem, King Hrothgar closes the mead hall, orders the cessation of all merriment, and awaits the arrival of a hero to slay Grendel.  King Hrothgar gets what he had hoped for and more when the legendary warrior Beowulf arrives, having been drawn there by rumors of fortune and glory.  Beowulf is brought to King Hrothgar and the predicament is explained to him.  There is also much to delight the eye of Beowulf, including a dazzling, solid gold, dragon-shaped mead flagon, which King Hrothgar says will belong to whoever kills Grendel, along with half the riches in his kingdom.  The scene is set up to possibly mean Queen Wealtheow will also be a prize, but the brash Beowulf, for the moment, tells King Hrothgar that he has the matter in hand before dismissing everyone but his men out of the hall.  Deciding it best to face Grendel in his birthday suit, Beowulf has his men sing in order to draw out the creature.  The ensuing battle ends with Beowulf ripping off one of Grendel’s arms.  Grendel makes it back to his mother and dies in her arms.  She is not happy with this development, traveling back to the mead hall and killing all of Beowulf’s companions save for his second-in-command, Wiglaf (voiced by Brendan Gleeson).  It is at this point that King Hrothgar lets on her existence, prompting another quest on Beowulf’s part.  This time, Beowulf ventures into Grendel’s mother’s lair, the gold cup he won for his prior victory lighting his way.  When he comes face-to-face with her, he finds himself powerless against her, particularly when she melts his sword with a touch.  Instead of killing her, she convinces him to lay with her for the purposes of conceiving a son to replace Grendel.  To incentivize Beowulf, she promises to make him a rich and powerful king if he but leave the drinking vessel with her and keep her in his heart.  In the next scene, we see Beowulf returning to King Hrothgar with Grendel’s head, telling the Dane that Grendel’s mother is dead.  As to why he did not bring back any evidence of her death, or the absence of the cup, Beowulf makes his excuses.  With that, King Hrothgar names Beowulf the successor to the throne, but then asks if he had really killed Grendel’s mother.  Beowulf stands by his story.  Saying that all he really wanted was to see Grendel die, King Hrothgar then leaps to his death and now Beowulf is king.  Fifty years pass and Grendel’s mother’s promises appear to be coming true.  Yet, the now aged Beowulf is full of regret for his decisions.  Upon returning from a campaign, he is shocked when a peasant brings him the dragon cup, claiming to have found it in a bog where Beowulf had said he lost it.  Not long thereafter, an actual dragon (voiced by Ray Winstone) attacks a church on the outskirts of town.  The badly injured priest, Unferth (voiced by John Malkovich), delivers a message from the dragon that the sins of the father have returned.  The words are cryptic to everyone but Beowulf.  With Wiglaf along with him as before, Beowulf goes to confront this new threat, certain that it will be his last battle.  This is prophetic, though some of his death is self-inflicted when he partially cuts off his own arm in order to reach inside the dragon’s neck and squeeze its heart with his fist.  They fall to the beach below, and Beowulf is given a glimpse of his only son in human form.  With his friend looking on, Beowulf admits his mistakes to Wiglaf before passing away.  The kingdom is inherited by Wiglaf, who, after Beowulf’s funeral, finds the golden flagon and Grendel’s mother beckoning him from offshore.

Grendel’s mother’s behavior (and there is no name for her in the original, either) is one of many significant changes in Beowulf from the source material.  According to what I read about these alterations, the filmmakers were confronted with certain unanswered questions that the medieval text beckons with to those who study it.  Whether you hate or like the finished product, they are sensible avenues of cinematic exploration.  They are also not my main concern.  Instead, the sort of things about which I care more are tantalizingly present from the beginning when we first meet Unferth and he is telling a friend of his how the Christian God offers immortality.  What is slightly annoying is the fact that these words come from him and he is portrayed as a coward, having hidden during Grendel’s first attack, and he beats his crippled servant.  This is not exactly Christian behavior, though nobody is perfect.  Please do not take that as a justification for Unferth’s actions  Still, God loves us all the same.  What He desires from us is relationship, and a contrite heart when we err.  I use the tired phrase of nobody being perfect because this also accurately describes the eponymous character.  Thankfully, he realizes his folly late in life, though without becoming Christian.  That is fine, and I suspect that, no matter his religion, he would have been cutting off his own arm to kill a dragon.  Instead, it is Queen Wealtheow who better embodies the Christian ideal.  She is not forgiving of King Hrothgar for his mistake, but her stubbornness is one of virtue rather than spite, so I am inclined to give her a pass early in the film.  What delighted me in the last half hour of the film is her conversion to the Faith, evidenced by the cross around her neck and walking about the castle (another anachronism, but we will not get into that for now) with a priest.  It is even better when she puts her Faith into practice.  Beowulf has not been faithful to her over the years, but she practices patience with Ursula (voiced by Alison Lohman), her husband’s concubine.  Later, Queen Wealtheow saves Ursula’s life during the final battle with the dragon.  Queen Wealtheow has every reason to be angry and bitter.  Instead, she practices virtue, even if no one else does, because that is what God would want of anyone.

Of course, I am not here to tell you that God wants you to see Beowulf.  It really stretches the boundaries of a PG-13, especially when it comes to Grendel’s mother, which I suspect it gets away with because it is animated.  Still, if you can get past these aspects, there are some decent lessons to be found, which is part of the reason for the original text.  I will leave you with the final thought that the written version of the story was first compiled by Catholic monks.  I wonder what they would think of this movie?