‘Beowulf & Grendel’ - Fantasy Film Review

‘Beowulf & Grendel’ - Fantasy Film Review
The Bottled Imp takes a look at ‘Beowulf & Grendel’, directed by Sturla Gunnarsson, starring Gerard Butler, Stellan Skarsgard, and Ingvar Sigurosson, released in 2005.

This film is loosely based, and I mean loosely, on the Anglo-Saxon epic poem ‘Beowulf’ and tells of the heroic King of Greatland, Beowulf, and his trusted men who are called upon by the Danish King Hrothgar to rid them of a troll named Grendel who has been terrorizing their village.

I’ve read half of the Seamus Heaney’s translated version of the poem that is over 1,000 years old. I can’t remember why I didn’t finish it. It’s certainly one of the old fantasy texts in existence and as such I hold this as a Holy Grail of texts, so to speak. With that in mind, I was expecting something special, a film of wonder and magic, a film of beauty and art. Did the film deliver? Well, that would spoil the episode review wouldn’t it?

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Presented by Ken Boyter

Produced & Directed by Julian Newman Turner

Music by Greg Breden

Artwork by Richard Nairn

[mithaearon]

The animated Beowulf with Ray Wineston is better but not great, The post apocalyptic version staring Christopher Lambert is trash but so bad its good fun. The best version of this story is the 13th Warrior which is based on a Michael Crichton book called the Eaters of the Dead, itself based on the story of Beowulf. That is amazing.

[benprewitt]

Something to think about, I think, is that this plays into the concept of trolls in Norse mythology as being very VERY similar to what extant Neanderthals would probably have been.

This, along with Michael Crichton's Eaters of the Dead and Harry Harrison's Hammer And The Cross trilogy, have as part of their world building this concept that Norse mythology was based on things they encountered out in the wilderness and the trolls may have been partly based on an extremely small and dying population of Neanderthals that were finally being interbred and killed out of existence.

[ericadler]

Hi Ken, I agree with you that it was a boring film and it looked more like a fairly cheep TV production. However I don't think you have to talk for so long about a movie that you cannot recommend seeing. I thought Gerard Butler was good in 300 and even more so in Coriolanus based on the Shakespeare play, he's good at playing the tough masculine type. I am looking forward to your take on the book, I want to read it myself and discuss it on my channel.

[dylanseymour]

I did not remember this one. But I do like the animated one.

[athenassigil]

The original Seamus Heaney translation is pure magic, the films are utter tripe. Stick to the original text or the excellent Michael Wood doc Beowulf from the way, your channel is excellent. .I say that whenever I comment here. Hwæt!

[jamesmcdade]

Look for the "making of" documentary of the filming. Far more entertaining than the film itself.

[slaidenradtke]

Your awesome, i hated how they hunted down gredels dad without a proper cause, or even an explanation it seem they just hated them do to their appearance

[Rodj]

Soon as you mentioned the language, I remembered this film, because that really bothered me too. Yeah, have to agree, missed opportunity here. Think it was maybe rushed out to compete with the bigger budget Beowulf film that came out a couple of years later (but they needn't have bothered 'cos that wasn't anything special either!) They made us read Beowulf in school I recall, I was only about 13 - was quite hard going!

[emmettturner]

It was SO MUCH BETTER than the Hollywood CGI Beowulf. Don’t know why using “teen” is such an issue. As far as I know they had an ancient Scandinavian word for “teen” that got translated.

[gamera]

There is an animated movie that came out in 2007 called Beowulf.
Anthony Hopkins is the king and Angelina Jolie is Grendel's mother.

[BazookaJRambo]

Ah, that might be why I only watched it once since buying it then - I didn't remember anything about it and none of what you commented on rang a bell, so it must be pretty forgetful lol!
There is the CGI animated Beowulf, but that has the voice of Ray Winstone (shouting - as he always does - "I will kill your monsta!!" a lot) as Beowulf, whose character likeness is closer to Sean Bean! Perhaps they couldn't get him and got Winstone instead. Ho hum.

[dylanseymour]

A similar themed and very good film in my view is The Thirteenth Warrior.

[dylanseymour]

I would like to see Peter Jackson do this story.