By now, it’s fairly well established that Beowulf [1] is an irredeemable, gawd-awful film. As if moviegoers needed another reason to hate the thing, I noticed something truly heinous about the animation: While the male characters were rendered in the spirit of realism, left with fairly expressive human faces, the female characters were idealized to the point of looking like wax figures. Did you notice the constipated quality about Queen Wealthow’s face whenever she tried, unsuccessfully, to crinkle her nose or furrow her brow? The filmmakers, apparently, are terrified of the lines that form on a beautiful, young woman’s face whenever she, you know, expresses herself. Sure, by the end of the movie they’ve tossed a few crowsfeet onto Wealthow’s mug, but that’s only to point out how she’s no longer fuckable.