If the legendary Viking warrior Beowulf can't resist the charms of a computer-enhanced Angelina Jolie, members of the video-game generation will be putty in the hands of this lusty screen saga. Beowulf succeeds in bringing Anglo-Saxon literature to life with a vividness hardly imaginable back in the 1970s when I skimmed the Old English poem as a high school student.

Today's teens will devour this violent, hyper-sexualized rendering. SAT scores could even rise, provided there are questions on the latent homoeroticism of epic heroes, the melding of Christian and pagan mythology, or Jolie as a pixilated cross between a Bond Girl and a serpentine descendant of the seductress Eve. At any rate, there'll be more howling at the moon outside the library and the Cineplex after adolescents taste from this bubbling cauldron, which is cheesy but always entertaining.

Murky and filled with the pagan equivalent of frat-house rituals, most of the first half takes place inside the sixth-century mead-hall of Danish King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins). In addition to a flabby behind, the inebriated old ruler is cursed with having no legitimate heir -- his fair queen (Robin Penn Wright) won't sleep with him -- and his knights are frequently slaughtered by the monster Grendel, the King's own spawn.

Beowulf and mates arrive to save the day. "I am Beowulf and I am here to kill your monster." After quaffing lots of mead and engaging in flirtatious foreplay with the queen, he rips Grendel's arm off during a nude tussle. The wound proves fatal and Beowulf goes to slay Grendel's grieving mother (Jolie). Wading into her grotto, a virtual bathhouse, he's seduced instead. She rises out of the swamp and issues a disarming invitation: "Enter me and give me a son." He obliges, but then tells everyone he killed her.

Years later, back in his own land, Beowulf has outgrown his rabble-rousing days and, while remaining a formidable warrior, matured into a noble leader. He's weighed down by the lie at the center of his legend however. Before long, he gets the chance to atone for his transgression during a spectacular battle with a fire-breathing dragon that turns out to be his own progeny.

That climactic aerial sequence alone is worth the price of admission, and overall the movie comes into its own during the second half. The much heralded high-tech animation method that director Robert Zemeckis first deployed in 2004's The Polar Express is ideally suited to its open-air action. The dark, claustrophobic scenes in part one are more focused on human forms and faces, the animation for which has the glassy sheen of stiff puppets and needs work.

Part two illustrates the movement into lightness and rejecting the pagan mindset in favor of acting out the Christian virtue of sacrifice -- redeeming oneself by taking responsibility for past deeds. This progression hinges on a plot deviation from the poem, in which Beowulf actually kills Grendel's mother. Making Beowulf the impregnator of a malignant creature helps link the two halves and is completely coherent. It also opens up the narrative to modern interpretations.

Beowulf is a "fallible and fraught" hero who starts out as a boastful, oversexed hooligan. His real sin is not a sexual act -- giving in to desire as Hrothgar had -- but lying about it. And the shapely, slithering female is more blameworthy. As in the Genesis story, evil stems from woman and the corrupting power of female charms. The feminine is demonized blatantly in Beowulf and yet everything in the movie is so sexualized that an additional reading comes into play. One the target audience will recognize and appreciate.

The film ends with a freeze frame on Beowulf's faithful sidekick and anointed successor, Wiglaf (Brendan Gleeson). Is he destined to commit Hrothgar and Beowulf's mistake? There are only two ways to avoid it with any surety: practice abstinence and adopt a chaste lifestyle or go gay. In either case, fathering a child is impossible. The latter means embracing different sexual urges and entails other dangers, but that's okay. As we teach teens nowadays, simply owning up to your true nature constitutes heroism. The lingering question is whether that makes the notion of redemption irrelevant.

(Released by Paramount and rated "PG-13" for intense sequences of violence, including disturbing images, some sexual material and nudity.)