We used to go to the movies about once a week through the nineties (or so it seemed) then everything just kind of dried up coming out of Hollywood. Now, we go probably once every couple of months, usually to a small theater in my small town, where it costs $5.50 to go to the movie, and a large soda costs $2.25.
Anyway...my brother didn't really like Beowulf, and said he couldn't recommend the movie to anyone. I thought it had entertainment value, and I had to admit, as much as I dislike Angelina Jolie's puffy lips and politics, the rendered version of her body was...er...quite nice, to put it mildly. My wife, who listened with amusement to my analysis after the fact, told me that it was indeed an accurate rendering of her body (as she heard on television, which I do not watch). Ouch, was all I could say. It was pretty impressive.
I think that boiled down to why my brother did not like it. He is striving to be a better Christian, and I think it offended his sensibilities to be attracted to an animated rendering of a beautiful female body.
My brother and I had a discussion on the way over to the theater, where I discussed a rather unnerving online experience I had just before I left my house to pick him up. I had just finished reading a thread on Free Republic about Heather Mills, who I embarrassingly had no idea of why someone would find her important or newsworthy. When I googled her, saw she was the one-legged ex-spouse of Paul McCartney. When I told my wife this, she told me I need to get out from under my rock occasionally. I replied I kind of like it better under the rock. Anyway, Heather Mills had suggested that we all drink rat's milk to decrease the burden on the planet. I found this hilarious, so I immediately set out to Photoshop a rat with a milking machine attached to it as a quick and funny joke to post on FR. (I try to emulate Freepers like dead and Martin Fierro, but I am an amateur in comparison) It was a quick and sloppy Photoshop job (shown here), but I like to do that sometimes just to keep my Photoshop skills intact. I usually do this by googling for images of things, cutting them out and compositing them together.
Anyway, when I googled for "milking machine", I had NO idea it would bring up what it did. I was dumbfounded by the images it returned. You just wouldn't believe them if you saw them. I am no prude, but...that was the seamy underbelly of the Internet I saw.
The point is, my brother said that being attracted to a rendered image of Angelina Jolie's rather impressive body is not very far away from the depravity of the images I described to him in my search for pictures of a milking machine. Now, I disagree with him, because I find a woman's body pretty nice to look at, even if it is a drawing, a sculpture, or yes, an animated rendering. In this, she simply looked like a good looking woman wearing a skintight body suit. I see his point, but I can't find it in myself to categorize the portrayal as perverted. He didn't actually say it was perverted, but I assume he was referring to the slippery slope.
As for the rendering quality, I usually focus not on the physical action, but on the realism of the human face, hair and clothes. When I first saw the rendered feature "Final Fantasy" a while back, I thought it was good animation at the time, even if the story was simply stupid. They nearly had the faces looking good in a few scenes. Then, a few years ago, there was a film called "The Animatrix" which was a compilation of a bunch of different animated short features. It was interesting, but they did what I thought was a stunningly good animation of a very attractive man and woman doing a blindfolded sword sparring match in a dojo. I thought the state of animation was getting much closer.
In Beowulf, it was even better. Very lifelike facial features.
The story? Sorry to say, I have never read Beowulf. I guess that makes me a Philistine, but I have never even read the Cliff Notes for it. So I have no idea how close or far to the original the animated feature falls.
I see no problem with someone taking a story, fable or theme (particularly a very old one) and reinterpreting it...it is done all the time with stories and music. On the other hand, I understand if someone takes exception to it.
I only take exception to reinterpretation (with artistic license) of recent historical events such as battles from the US Revolutionary War onwards...that is kind of my cut-off point. I really didn't take exception with the the movie 300 or anything like that, but I do take exception with movies like "Platoon".
Beowulf did have entertainment value, but it is not for everyone. In my opinion, Angelina Jolie played Satan...no doubt about it. A good looking one, like Elizabeth Hurley in "Bedazzled", but Satan nonetheless. If I were Beowulf, I would have admired her appearance but no way I would have slept with her. I've seen the movie "Species" and know better...:)