Beowulf & Grendel (2005)

The otherworldly landscape of Iceland lends an appropriate touch of dark fantasy to this modern retelling of Beowulf, the oldest epic poem in the English language. Gerard Butler (The Phantom of the Opera) brings the right balance of physicality and world-weariness as the Swedish hero Beowulf, who travels to Denmark to fight the monstrous troll Grendel (Icelandic superstar Ignvar Sigurdsson), which has been plaguing the house of King Hrothgar (Stellan Skarsgård, buried under a mound of prosthetic hair). However, what transpires is not a battle between good and evil, but a convoluted mystery of sorts, with Beowulf playing the detective who discovers that his foe is more human than monster, and Hrothgar less wronged innocent than catalyst for his own downfall. Director Sturla Gunnarsson succeeds in pulling this legendary story from the dust of academics by contemporizing the dialogue (Andrew Rai Berzins has an excellent ear for hard-bitten palaver), and his visuals are nothing less than striking, but the film attempts to be both monster movie and melancholy drama, while never quite satisfying the requirements of either genre. Regardless, the quality cast (which includes Sarah Polley from Dawn of the Dead as a sharp-tongued witch with a connection to Grendel) and some well-handled action sequences should hold viewers' attention even when the unnecessarily complex plot does not. --Paul Gaita Amazon.com

Beowulf & Grendel

I have seen both Beowulf productions recently released. Granted I am biased toward Gerard Butler, but I liked this production much better than the animated version. The character of Beowulf in this movie was more humble, more thoughtful, more humane. The characters were stronger and more varied. June 23, 2008

Beowolf and Grendel

Wife bought movie - fan of Gerard Butler - enjoyed movie - Gerard Butler made the movie. June 18, 2008

Good movie

This movie follows the tale of the Geatland hero Beowulf and his fight against the troll Grendel. This movie was shot very well and the screen writer not only used the epic poem but the history of the era to make this movie. If you're looking for a movie that has a good story search no further; if you are looking for a movie without a complex plot but with pretty pictures go watch The Lord of the Rings or the 2007 animated version of Beowulf... June 11, 2008

Horrid, awful movie. NO action and makes no sense

I love Gerard Butler in 300 and thought Attila was ok. This movie is absolutely horrible. First let's define the characters. The troll and his dad are best described as Neanderthal men with lots of body hair and apparently large plastic deltoids (shoulder muscles) that look incredibly fake. The movie starts with the Neanderthal men howling and babbling like deranged infants and believe me you will have plenty of opportunity to listen to this jibber jabber come from the Troll (only the country whore Selma seems somehow be able to translate this Neanderthal language). Then the Danes and their king easily kill Grendel's father when Grendel himself was just a wee little Neanderthal boy with white hair all over his face. Grendel is pissed and later is able to kill hundreds of Danes quite easily (but if you are looking for action don't as there is NO real fight scenes in this movie you just see the after shot). Why on earth is Grendel such a power house when his Dad was able to easily be killed in his prime? Your right it does not make any sense but if it did it would not belong in this movie.
Back to Selma. Anyway she is a "witch" and a self describe "whore" who Beowulf seems to kind of fall in love with but not really but who cares? Her hair is best described as the fashion one would see after someone had been living underground and washing their hair with worm guts for ten years and despite the fact that it rains everyday her hair magically says dry and dirty for the film. If that isn't a reason enough for Beowulf to fall for her (besides the fact she is a whore) then there is the fact that the Troll also comes a knockin' as he has taken quite a fancy to the little witch.
Anyway the meandering story looks as if you are finally going to see some action when the Troll comes to attack the Danes and Beowulf (he apparently has a big conscious and would not attack Beowulf and his men until they urinated on his house/cave entrance and smashed his Dad's shrunken skull {which was the decoration for Grendel's cave}. But instead of action you see the Troll instantly kill Beowulf's men with one blow but no way can he with Beowulf, no he just hits him a few times and then looks at him longingly as Beowulf ties a rope on his hand??? What the heck? Then the Troll jumps off the roof and is hanging there. He is apparently too tired or weak to reach up and cut the rope from his hand that Beowulf tied so he does what anyone would . . . cut off his whole arm???? WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT? This guy is monster strong and he makes one weak attempt to reach up and cut the rope then says ah who cares I have another arm let me just go ahead and resect this whole arm, not at the wrist mind you the shoulder which make perfect sense-NOT. Also the soldiers were apparently dancing and drinking or something because no archer comes to shoot him hanging there, they only show up after he is running away into the night.
I could bore you with the one dimensional king who is a whiney and annoying character with a wife who likes to slap him or the crazy Celtic priest who occasionally pops up but I hope I have saved you from wasting your time. Re-watch 300 or Troy.
June 8, 2008

This movie was funny in all the wrong places.

This was seriously one of the worst films I've seen, and I've seen "The Curse" with Wil Wheaton. There is no continuity with accents, character, and least of all the story of Beowulf. The only thing this movie has in common with the poem is that there is some guy named Beowulf and some guy named Grendel. Grendel is not at all meant to be a sympathetic character. He is a _monster_, not just a big man. There is no mention of Odin or Valhalla in the poem. There are absolutely NO sexual themes in the poem, something from which many a modern storyline could learn. These themes do not make a story better, and it is quite clear that they forced this down our throats with the addition of an entirely new character just to be some kind of horrible, awkward "love" interest.

The poem aside and taking this as an independent story, it's awful. It's four-monkeys-at-one-typewriter awful. It's almost "Galaxy of the Dinosaurs" awful. And if the story wasn't bad enough already, they decided to throw in the F-bomb a few times for NO REASON. Look, I bought this movie because of the reviews on this site, hoping for something that vaguely resembled the only worthwhile poem that has ever been written. And understandably there is no way to do the poem its full justice, but I was hoping for at least a fun story that was well-written. This catastrophe of a movie was much more of a disappointment than I was expecting.

I'll give it this though: the landscape was pretty. June 6, 2008

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