the take

Angelina Jolie Gets Naked, Or At Least Naked Enough

“Angelina Jolie’s ass” in Beowulf.Courtesy of Paramount

In the new international unrated trailer for Beowulf, Angelina Jolie is naked! Or, as the overheated movie blogs are clarifying, “a little bit more naked.” As in, “naked breasts.” As in, “full frontal (and behind) nudity.” As in, “a HOT, nude water monster.”

But to be precisely clear, Angelina Jolie is not exactly naked, so much as she is dressed in a bodysuit, filmed with motion-capture cameras and then reanimated on computers with great glistening thighs and a deadly ponytail that has a life of its own.

The faces in the Beowulf trailer are every bit as creepy as those of the nightmarish elves in Robert Zemeckis’s previous CGI effort, The Polar Express, but there’s something additionally disturbing about this simulated nudity. The new and improved Angelina surpasses in creepiness the previous high point of digital motion-capture animation: the bouncing-boobed pinup gals of Xbox games like Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball 2.

Releasing this racy trailer at the tail end of Comic-Con is surely a genius marketing move that will rope in teen boys. But it works for Jolie too — and that’s why we’ll see more nude CGI sex scenes soon. Stripping down to a green bodysuit might just be the perfect solution for today’s sexy, humanitarian mother who wants to titillate her horny fans without actually baring all. In the so-called real world, you can play saint while your avatars do your dirty work. —Logan Hill

Angelina Jolie Gets Naked, Or At Least Naked Enough