Beowulf

Why Is Beowulf Rated PG-13?

Don’t come to this film expecting an academic dissertation on what many believe to be the oldest record of the English language. Instead, this is a Hollywood glitz script produced in video-game-like motion capture animation and spiced up with massive amounts of gory violence and near-explicit nudity. Many scenes show people and monsters literally being ripped in half, limbs and heads torn off and even eaten by a crazed, decomposing human-like monster. Blood pours freely (and spurts in 3D in the giant-screen version), making what is possibly the most violent US-rated PG-13 film ever. Many scenes feature a man and/or a woman completely naked except for convenient obscuring devices to cover explicit body parts. Fornication is celebrated and endorsed by the ruling king. People drink alcohol to drunken excess, and sexual remarks are made (including terms that are far too contemporary for 6th Century Denmark). Only language is spared, with four mild profanities.