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Spoiler Points for Beowulf (2007) [PG-13] 113 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $13.25
Film's Official Website • Film's Trailer
Click to read the non-spoiler review
Spoiler Plot Points:
• Beowulf does not slay Grendel directly. He severs off his arm. Grendel dies later back in his mother's lair.
• Upon the death of her son, Grendel's mother returns to Hrothgar's Great Hall and kills dozens of men in their sleep, hanging them by their feet from the rafters to die.
• Beowulf arises in the midst of all the death and learns from Hrothgar that is likely the work of Grendel's mother, an evil demon.
• Beowulf in the possession of Unferth's sword and Hrothgar's golden dragon cup and accompanied by Wiglaf, heads off to the lair to slay Grendel's mother.
• In the lair Beowulf finds Grendel's body and then meets Grendel's mother for the first time. Her beauty is mesmerizing as she emerges from the slimely lake maintaining a residue to cover all the 'right' places of her shimmering body. His attempts to slay her with the sword are futile begging him to wonder if the malevolent Unferth game him the sword knowing it would be ineffectual. But, before he would attempt to kill her, she offers him the stuff legends are made of. If she will father her a new son, she shall make him an ever-powerful king insofar as the golden cup stays with her. The film shows not the outcome of this decision directly except that Beowulf returns to the Great Hall with Grendel's head.
• But Hrothgar has his suspicions of what has happened giving implication that he has encountered Grendel's mother himself; and, by inference, that Grendel was the sone he fathered with her in exchange for becoming a great king. He makes a grand proclamation that Beowulf shall be his successor, and then he throws himself off a cliff.
• Beowulf enjoys a happy life as king, though he obviously misses the heroic action of his former life. He takes a mistress as his wife is aging, he too unable to produce an heir.
• A young man discovers the gold cup and is caught by Unferth with it in his possession. Unferth makes him return it to Beowulf, but Beowulf knows that this is terrible as it means his contract with Grendel's mother is over. Shortly thereafter, a golden, fire-breathing dragon emerges from Grendel's mother's lair. Her new son flies straight to unleash a new terror on Beowulf's people. Beowulf emerges to attack the dragon which he does in a very exciting series of sequences. Eventually, he severs the membrane in the throat of the dragon, reaches in, and literally rips out the beast's heart sending it plummeting to the ground. Unfortunately, Beowulf falls with him, to his death. As the two lie on the beach, the dragon reverts to human form and looks, indeed, like Beowulf's son. They put Beowulf's body on funeral barge and send him to sea in flames.
• As if to make room for a sequel, the new king, Wiglaf, is seen looking out into the sea when Grendel's mother arises and looks as if she's ready to offer him mention in an epic tale sung about his own life if only he will give her a son.
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