Beowulf and Grendel (2006)
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Director: Sturla Gunnarsson Cast: Gerard Butler, Stellan Skarsgard, Sarah Polley Country: Canada/UK/Iceland Year: 2006 Score: *** MPAA Rating: |
BEOWULF & GRENDEL is based on an Iceland poem about a an ongoing battle between the warrior Beowulf (Gerard Butler of DRACULA 3000 and PHANTOM OF THE OPERA) and a marauding troll, Grendel (Ingvar Sigurdsson). But BEOWULF & GRENDEL is no Scandinavian fairy tale. Icelandic born director Gunnarsson’s (RARE BIRDS) and scriptwriter Andrew Rai Berzins’ tale comes complete with sex, foul language and graphically violent fights that often result in severed limbs and other assorted body parts. For example, the film’s funniest joke involves bestiality.
But Gunnarsson’s uncompromising tale of action and adventure is not half bad, once one gets used to the director’s style of story-telling. The cinematic landscape is as beautiful as his characters are bearded, grotesque and ugly. In fact, - the film begins with a camera pan of vast stretches of untouched beach and rugged mountainous terrain that has a beauty different from the Salzburg Mountains in THE SOUND OF MUSIC before a shot of a bearded baby. The action sequences are bloody and well executed and the often injected bouts of humor are distinctly male, often involving beer and drunkenness. The females in the audience would not be offended as they are well represented. The queen always gets her way, slapping her deceitful and distracted King Hrothgar (Stellan Skarsgard) frequently enough. The local witch makes a strong feminine presence that affects key points in the plot.
Berzins’ script has a few inconsistencies. At one point, Beowulf convinces that perhaps there are no such things as trolls (the bearded baby grows up to be Grendel) but the next action scene involves a female monster of considerable inhuman strength. Sarah Polley’s witch comes complete with make-up and so does the Danes’ queen. The Danes speak with an English accent while outsiders with a Scot’s that Scot Butler manages quite well. The other non-Dane, Polley (The witch) gets away speaking Canadian – all evidence of a true international production.
Like beer and drunkenness, BEOWULF & GRENDEL is guilty entertainment, but one can only take so much.
Review by: Gilbert Seah
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Having seen the film at the Toronto Film Festival and being wowed and it was then that the spell had been indeed cast, it is time to spring into action to get this movie seen and have the distribution it so rightly deserves. Many are fearing it will have a limited distribution. It’s Canadian Release will be in March 2006. Let’s help this great epic be seen by all. Fan support and power can really move mountains. We welcome ideas and help to get the word out. Come on and saddle up and prepare for the ride of a lifetime!!!! It does not hurt a wee bit as well because we all love Gerry Butler and think is a real actor for our time!!! Come and join us as we help get the word out about this powerful epic because let’s face it in these uncertain times we all need a hero and that hero is --------BEOWULF!!!!!
1500 years ago people of the North shared their stories around campfires, I suspect that the storyteller was a significant member of society- diverting folks briefly from the hardship of their lives. Preserving a heritage that had no written form. With each telling the narrator could have thrown in a few new twists or characters. Beowulf and Grendel is another possible version of a story that alot of us had to read in English Lit 101 and Andrew Berzins is another storyteller, whose version I enjoyed very much...Enough to go see the movie three times so far. I don’t think it is unreasonable to suppose that people of that time probably described individuals “different” from themselves as trolls or witchs. The poem on which this movie is based presents the story in black and white, good versus evil- this movie is a range in between and beautifully colored with Iceland. I really like the journey of awareness that Beowulf experiences. Yes, it has brutal elements, but then it was a brutal time…
I’ve seen this film 3 times and each time I leave the theatre all I can say is WOW! Amazing! The Icelandic scenery is hauntingly and ruggedly beautiful yet fierce and harsh. In many ways I find it mirrors the characters in Beowulf and Grendel. All is not always what it seems. You get glimpses into the characters, into their secret places. You learn and see who they have become. And a bit of why they are who they are. You understand. I could not help but be pulled in by Beowulf, Grendel, Selma and even Hrothgar. The performances by Gerard Butler, Ingvar Sigurdsson, Sarah Polley and Stellan Skarsgard were great. But the film is not only dramatic but humourous in spots. Beowulf and his merry bunch of warriors are a hearty yet fun group. I believe this movie will inspire people to learn more about this time in history, when times were more violent and religions and ideas were fusing together.
Job well done to Sturla Gunnarsson, Andrew Rai Berzins, the cast and the crew.
I carefully read the above review of Beowulf and Grendel, paying close attention to what the author chose to pay attention to. There was the blood and guts-very realistic for a time that worshipped the sword, the beards and coarse humor-again very realistic in AD 700-900, the raw Icelandic scenery, even the feminie presence in the codependent queen and independent witch (what choice did either have in that time). What’s missing here is an appreciation of the story as told by Berzins. It is a tale that begins as the traditional hero quest and ends as a tragedy where it becomes apparent that noone will rise above the mark of Cain, not even the heroic Beowulf. This is an ancient tale told with a sobering twist that left me stunned both times I saw the film. That “What the ...” feeling turned into many, many discussions on how and why the story turned out as it did and what it all meant. The story was meant to play as a possible prequel to the Beowulf Epic, to show the shades of gray that might have become the gilded black and white of the saga committed to parchment 1200 years ago. Its ties extend to ancient myths that predated it and the Beowulf epic that followed it. The story is filled with human error and shortsightedness that points up the humanity in us all. Sure there were beards and swords and blood and crash male humor. There was also a thought provoking tale to be pondered for its lessons long after the theater went dark. I can’t wait to see it for a third time.