It is a classic tale of a man who defeats three antagonists. The first is Grendel, a gigantic beast, then Grendel's mother and finally a great Dragon, this last one resulting in his own death. (Oh! Did I just give something away?) Inspired by the recent release of the CGI epic film based on the poem, McFarlane has created four key figures based on the story.

In reverse order, we have the unnamed Dragon, a great mustard-colored beastie with wide wings and a leaf-shaped tail, with claws aplenty, held aloft above a waterlike base with a tiny but nonetheless heroic Beowulf hanging on for dear life to a rope caught in the dragon's mouth.

Next we have Grendel's Mother, an unnamed creature who in the Robert Zemeckis film is a shapeshifter, is portrayed here as what appears to be a sea serpent with features similar to the Dragon, the reason for which is not coincidental in the film. Her plated body is nicely sculpted and ends in a flexible tail. Her base is a pile of coins and treasure.

Then comes the feature monster, Grendel, who is seen here as nothing less than a figure from the "Bodies" art exhibit that's causing such a stir in the world at the moment. Depicted here as a large, disfigured humanoid creature stripped almost entirely of skin with a hypercephalic noggin, he is holding up a Norse soldier in rage, about to toss him.

Lastly we have the hero himself, Beowulf, a beautifully rendered version of the CGI character of the film, whose pose in a full-on sword attack will give yet another new meaning to the term "wide stance."

Each figure comes with a nicely rendered base. With the exception of Ma Grendel, each base has pegs for the figure to stand on, forming nice display figures. They are packed in plastic cubes with some information about the film on the back of each, as well as pictures of all four figures.

Nice figures, but little action

McFarlane has been lauded in the past (not only by me) for bringing amazing articulation to action figures at a time when it was rare to have anything but the most basic joint movement. Over the past several years, McFarlane has gone to the other extreme, making figures with so little articulation, and joints that are so useless as to be unnecessary, that their "action figures" no longer deserve the title.

Don't get me wrong. These "figures" are beautiful. But they are not meant for action. They stand nicely in their set poses, and some of them have articulated shoulders and joints that split the arm, and some have a hip or a calf that may rotate, but in general these joints serve little posing purpose.

The Dragon, while spectacular, and deserving its own place in McFarlane's "Dragons" series (see my next review in January), has absolutely no articulation apart from feet that can rotate along the axis of the leg. But it does make a nicely detailed dragon, on a lovely display of clear blue "water." Its leaf-fan tail and spectacularly rendered wings are impressive. The tiny figure of Beowulf serves to show its true scale, and its menace is unmistakable.

The figure does require some assembly, however. The wings attach to the body by pegs, but also by little flaps that fit into slots on the back. These slots in my review figure had closed up, and I had to pry them open before attaching the wings, but once attached, they look great.

Be careful: There is a loosely packed clear peg that's needed to prop the dragon up properly on its perch—it fits into a nigh-invisible hole in the base and a small hole at the base of the dragon's tail.

Grendel's Mother has the most articulation, having fully jointed shoulders and neck and a flexible wired tail. Her elbows, however, are not jointed but pivoted along the arm's axis, as are the wrists. For the life of me, however, I can't jam the tail into the base well enough for her to stand on her own.

Grendel has one arm that can move about 30 degrees, while the other, holding aloft a removable warrior, has a shoulder that rotates only along the axis, which means it can't actually change angle at all, and is 100 percent superfluous. The elbow, on an angle, however, can rotate 360 degrees for any angle you wish. One hip has enough rotation to allow the monster to fit onto the pegs of its base, however.

The striking feature of this figure is the eyes. Hidden among the hideous muscles of the face are two very nicely painted eyes that appear to show an inner pain that you can actually feel.

Beowulf is another gorgeous figure, though again, not much action is possible. His attacking arm, holding its sword, is fairly posable, with joints at the shoulder, elbow and wrist, but if you rotate the head once you probably won't a second time. Any angle other than the default looks completely freakish and unnatural. His sword is clever: The hand doesn't open, but the pommel is removable, allowing the sword to be removed and placed in his scabbard, both meticulously rendered by the artists at McFarlane.