Beowulf & Grendel
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DVD details
Actor: Gunnar Eyjólfsson, Hringur Ingvarsson, Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson, Spencer Wilding, Stellan SkarsgårdBrand: Fox
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Color, Dolby, Import, NTSC
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 103 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-09-26
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
DVD Reviews of Beowulf & Grendel
DVD Review: A more Human View.
Summary: 5 Stars
I too had read Beowulf but unlike many negative reviews of this movie I must post significant disagreement with those citing "not true to the poem" reasons to dislike the movie. The recent "Beowulf" With Angelina Jolie was a suckfestival in that it did nothing for the story but make it visual. The troll was not special, just special effects. What I see in Beowulf and Grendle is not an exact interpretation but a more human view of an old legend. History is written by winners and the original writer of Beowulf either had one hell of an imagination or based his story on real events and in order to protect his head had to change names because back in those days criticism usually met a violent death. So in this intro let me regress. First of all like any movie is a certain amount of interpretation. I seen the 'Wild Wild West' and was shocked and Horrified to see James West played by a Black Man. That completely screwed with history and the original show I loved as a kid. So was James West now James Shaft West? (He is one bad Mother F... NOW SHUT YOUR MOUTH! Talkn' about J Shaft West!) Historically for a black man in that day and age being some secret agent man on many factual levels sends shivers down my back. Let us see him infiltrating some society of hard core Southerners. Shoo, can he go Chameleon and make himself white suddenly? Somehow I don't think Ulysses S. Grant would even shake his hand since he was a total racist (HISTORICAL FACT!!). I am not against black actors having lead roles at all and have seen inspired performances in many movies but Wild Wild West was one movie I refuse to own on the grounds of Distortion of American history and Distortion of an original TV show.
The movie Earth Sea was another cite able disappointment because most of the characters were supposed to be black and not white like in the original book Earth Sea! Now with Beowulf and Grendle there is differences from the original poem and granted I am not that much of a buff on Scandinavians but what I do know of them was that they were not drunk rampaging barbarians. They were in fact a proper orderly society living in very rough conditions. They were explorers and warriors that often made money being paid to fight. Like anyone that lives hard they play hard. They were a warriors and artists, craftsmen, farmers, fishermen. They were not in a hurry to go to Valhallah like many picture Vikings. But they like other gifted people had some pretty far fetched imaginations. Sometimes ordinary people do things that seem extra ordinary and become legends thaks to others telling about their deeds.
Now lets face it, not everybody has the money to throw around for serious CGI or Angelina Jolie. For what was done with this movie I got to give props to the makers of this one. it put some rather interesting twists and humanization to what otherwise was a tough story to wrap my mind around. The movie 'Beowulf' sucked miserably in comparison to Beowulf and Grendle. Where Beowulf in the movie 'Beowulf' came off as a loud obnoxious braggart and a sea demon making babies by the Danish kings and sending them off to make the Danes suffer 'Beowulf and Grendle' portrayed Grendle as a warrior but one with more of a brain rather than have him act like a WWF wrestler yelling "I am Beowulf!" all the time. Grendle had a real reason "other than the noise bothered him" to lay waste to the Danes. Yes the movie had a gritty feel to it but then again I had a history teacher who liked to show the movie Jabberwocky (NOT Monty Python but it had a lot of the Python cast in it!!!) to us in High School because it was the most realistic look at Medieval life available at the time. People didn't bath often then and without a water heater who would? If you are looking for grandiose spectacle and fantastic structures and special effects galore and big ugly inhuman trolls go to the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy. The beer hall in 'Beowulf and Grendle' would have been the biggest and best structure of the day. The ships were very period and Iceland ponies would have been used instead of regular horses BECAUSE THEY HAD TO BRING THEM ON THEIR BOATS AND REGULAR HORSES DO NOT DO WELL AT ALL IN THOSE COLD CONDITIONS!!! Back then you went with what works and small ponies fit on the boats better than large horses. Iceland ponies were bread to deal with the harsh conditions and travel by sea if necessary. There also is the concept of a troll to grapple with. It was an insult as well as a reference to a monster. The troll in the movie was a man but he was a rather big (and I mean HUGE) man and was very strong. He seemed impervious to cold. Pissed off with a big sword in his hand he would have been someone I would even question an AK-47 stopping. In that day a man like that on a rampage would have been considered a monster. Heck, even today of someone like that were to rampage they would be described and feared as a monster and not a man.
If anything take this movie with a gain of salt and think of it as what could have inspired the legend. granted it was not done by any super studio and does not have famous top name actors in it but is will shock and horrify you in ways that other movies failed! It was quirky and had a feel to it that was sincere to the medieval era. Nothing about it was anachronistic. Nothing went out into left field. Grendle was not exactly a monster. The Danes made him one. This is a movie of double revenge and twisted truth. I liked it on many levels from performance, scenery, plot, flow of story, and it did manage to keep the breadcrumbs coming until the revelation of the truth. The witch was way different as well. Not like what any would classically expect.
I may not be some college educated study on legends or writing or movies but I know what has heart and what doesn't. 'Beowulf and Grendle' has heart and a lot of it. I recommend this for at least one viewing. NOT FOR CHILDREN OR THE SQUEAMISH. Has some limited sex but it also has some very dramatic violent moments (and I am not talking about when Grendle go on a smash-a-thon in the beer hall!). Rated R for a damn good reason. It was just a very entertaining movie and I will own it soon!
Description of Beowulf & Grendel
BEOWULF & GRENDEL - DVD MovieThe 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
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