History YMMV / Beowulf2007

* MagnificentBitch: Grendel's mother is an ancient being who bore Grendel to King Hrothgar to tie him to her land forever. Upon her son's death at Beowulf's hands, Grendel's mother seduces Beowulf, inspiring him to tell a false story about killing her to gain kingship while she bears his child, a golden-skinned man who becomes a mighty dragon. Using her son to ravage the kingdom and kill Beowulf, Grendel's mother ends the film about to seduce Beowulf's probable successor Wiglaf and continue the cycle.

* EvilIsSexy: Grendel's mother.

* HilariousInHindsight:
** After Beowulf tears off Grendel's arm, King Hrothgar (played by Creator/AnthonyHopkins) says "Odin be praised." [[{{Film/Thor}} Guess he heard his praise after all...]]
** This wouldn't be the last time Creator/AngelinaJolie played a supernatural creature who has [[Film/{{Maleficent}} a dark past with a human king]].

** Just a couple of years earlier, ''Film/BeowulfAndGrendel'' also had BelligerentSexualTension between Beowulf and a MysteriousWoman who might be in league with Grendel, and Beowulf worrying that he might have just repeated Hrothgar's "sin" [[spoiler:(killing a "troll" in view of his young son, in this case)]] and set himself for revenge by Grendel's kind in the future.

** This film is often accused of plagiarizing ''Film/ThreeHundred'', with the line [[SayMyName "I! AM! BEOWULF!"]] being a bit too similar to "THIS! IS! SPARTA!" and the line "TONIGHT! WILL BE DIFFERENT!" being rather akin to "TONIGHT! WE DINE! IN HELL!" What these people don't realize is that there's a thing called AnimationLeadTime. Filming of ''Beowulf'' was done long before filming of ''300'' began.

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation:

* IdiotPlot: A large part of the film's conflict comes from the Nordic obsession with individual battle and personal search of glory. The CycleOfRevenge only works because it is always a single hero who visits Grendel's mother while alone and uninformed of her nature, which helps her to seduce him and allows him to accept her pact in the secrecy of her cave. Although Beowulf states he cannot send another champion without revealing his own downfall because it would only spin the wheel again, his best course of action would be attacking the cave with all his available warriors and/or briefing properly the next hero and forcing him not to go alone. Even if Grendel's mother is powerful enough to take everything they can throw at her, it is still the survival of their kingdom which is at stake, not a simple matter of glory, so they should avoid taking any risk to leave her there to torment the lands with yet another generation of monsters.

* UncannyValley: A bit disturbing at first, but gets better as the film goes on. Clearly, the crew learned a few things from ''Literature/ThePolarExpress''. For the most part, the expressions and characters themselves don't invoke this a whole lot, but there is a slightly creepy air whenever they're prominently handling objects or interacting with them, due to the objects not seeming to have any weight and simply "floating" in the characters' hands.

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: The film tries to picture Grendel as a childish monster who only attacks Heorot because its noise causes him great pain due to his horribly oversized eardrum. However, he obviously ''enjoys'' killing, to the point he falls asleep while mumbling the word as a MadnessMantra. He is also clearly capable of communication, as he speaks intelligibly to Beowulf at the end of their fight (it's just that, by then, Beowulf is so fired up that he isn't interested in talking), yet his only way of dealing with the problem from the beginning is wreaking havoc and butchering people. At the end of the day, no matter how much the creators wanted to humanize him, he is still what many monsters in stories are: [[TheBully a big bully]] [[AxCrazy who loves violence]].

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: The film tries to picture Grendel as a childish monster who only attacks Heorot because its noise causes him great pain due to his horribly oversized eardrum. However, he obviously ''enjoys'' killing, to the point he falls asleep while mumbling the word as a MadnessMantra. He is also clearly capable of communication, as he speaks intelligibly to Beowulf at the end of their fight (it's just that, by that point, Beowulf is so fired up that he isn't interested in talking), yet his only way of dealing with the problem from the beginning is wreaking havoc and butchering people. At the end of the day, no matter how much the creators wanted to humanize him, he is still what many monsters in stories are: a big bully who loves violence.

* AudienceAlienatingPremise: Many people in the Anglosphere are familiar with ''Literature/{{Beowulf}}'' due to its presence in the highschool curriculum, but despite (or because) this reason, it is still a topic that appeals the most to English literature buffs and professors... who were the people most likely to get offended at the film's cynical, fantastic reinterpretation of the poem (a case of HistoryRepeats, by the way, if one knows Creator/JRRTolkien's role in the history of Beowulfian criticism). As a result, although the film didn't too badly by itself, academic response to its history and changes went from mixed to raging.

** Her natural high heels can have the same effect when in human form. Even viewers without a foot fetish can find those additions offputting or just plain silly. The novelization (which was written by a woman, amusingly enough) doesn't even mention them.

* MagnificentBitch: Grendel's mother is an ancient being who bore Grendel to King Hrothgar to tie him to her land forever. Upon her son's death at Beowulf's hands, Grendel's mother seduces Beowulf, inspiring him to tell a false story about killing her to gain kingship while she bears his child; a golden-skinned man who becomes a mighty dragon. Using her son to ravage the kingdom and kill Beowulf, Grendel's mother ends the film about to seduce Beowulf's probable successor Wiglaf and continue the cycle.

** Grendel's mother having natural high heels on her bare feet. The design they are meant to evoke is so anachronistic that one might amuse himself speculateing that high heels in the film's universe were invented by Danes inspired by her. (Tellingly, the novelization removes them from its canon by not mentioning them on her description.)

** An obscure Japanese 1991 novel/OVA named ''Literature/PsychicWars'' already featured a hyper-manly lead opposing an ancient race of demons that populated a country before humans did in medieval times. It similarly included an ogre-like monster, a reptilian creature taking the form of a beautiful naked woman, the hero killing one of the shapeshifters by pulling out its small heart with his hand, and a queen that mated with human warriors through generations in an attempt to rebuild her race and desired the protagonist, desiring both this and revenge for the death of her kin. Even if this might be just a bunch of coincidences, one has to wonder if at least Gaiman was familiar with the OVA when he wrote the film's treatment.

* UnintentionallySympathetic: Beowulf's decision to [[spoiler:accept the offer of Grendel's mother]] is meant to be egotistical and destructive, but considering that she seems to be magically indestructible, and that by accepting he at least secures a potentially endless peace for his kingdom instead of having her murdering people nonstop in revenge, it actually looks like the best option. The only alternative would have been to keep trying to strike her and get killed for the effort, thus spinning the wheel again with the next hero who would come to kill her. It also helps that the treaty was broken not by Beowulf, but by the slave who took the horn (in the movie, albeit not in the novelization).

** The film borrows a lot from ''Film/Beowulf1999'', namely [[spoiler:Hrothgar being Grendel's father, Grendel's mother being a shapeshifting, draconic demon seductress interested in Beowulf, and Beowulf having instant, corresponded LoveAtFirstSight for the lady of the house, who is/was in a loveless marriage before his arrival.]]
** Just a couple of years earlier, ''Film/BeowulfAndGrendel'' also had Beowulf worrying that he might have just repeated Hrothgar's "sin" [[spoiler:(killing a "troll" in view of his infant son, in this case)]] and set himself for revenge by Grendel's kind in the future.

** Just a couple of years earlier, ''Film/BeowulfAndGrendel'' also had Beowulf worrying that he might have repeated Hrothgar's mistake [[spoiler:(killing a "troll" in view of his infant son, in this case)]] and set himself for revenge by Grendel's kind later.

** The film takes a lot from ''Film/Beowulf1999'', namely [[spoiler:Hrothgar being Grendel's father, Grendel's mother being a shapeshifting, draconic demon seductress interested in Beowulf, and Beowulf having instant, corresponded LoveAtFirstSight for the lady of the house, who is/was in a loveless marriage before his arrival.]]

* ItWasHisSled: The revelation that the dragon is the main character's son is meant to be a plot twist (even if a rather obvious one), but this Beowulf adaptation is mostly known as "the one in which Beowulf bangs Grendel's mother and becomes the dragon's father" nowadays.

* AudienceAlienatingPremise: Many people in the Anglosphere are familiar with ''Literature/{{Beowulf}}'' due to its presence in the highschool curriculum, but despite (or because) this reason, it is still a topic that appeals the most to English literature buffs and professors... who were the people most likely to get offended at the film's cynical, fantastic reinterpretation of the poem (a case of HistoryRepeats, by the way, if one knows Creator/JRRTolkien's role in the history of Beowulfian criticism). As a result, although the film didn't too bad by itself, academic response to its history and changes went from mixed to raging.

** What are the goals of Grendel's mother? Does she want to simply perpetuate her bloodline? To give birth to a new demonkind? To mess with humans:

* BestKnownForTheFanservice: A naked Angelina Jolie emerging slowly from the water is probably the first thing people will recall about the film. That or Beowulf fighting naked.

** ''Film/ConanTheDestroyer'' of all things already featured loincloth-wearing, headband-sporting, sword-wielding hero who was forced to infiltrate an underwater lair and fight an enemy immune to sword slashes who wanted a golden horn.