Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Review - Beowulf and Grendel



This movie is based on a well known rather epic poem, which i am totally unfamiliar with. This gives me an advantage watching Beowulf and Grendel as a movie before reading the story, i have absolutely nothing to compare the film against other than similar genre movies. So i went in blind so to speak and came out pleasantly surprised. Beowulf and Grendel follows the story of a troll Grendel who as a child sees his father murdered by a tribe of Danes Led by their King, at the time King Hrothgar spots Grendel as a small child troll hanging off the cliff after they have murdered his father and decides to spare him his life. Later Grendel Grows up into a giant powerful troll, and he reaps revenge on the murderers of his father killing them in their sleep except the King Hrothgar. Hrothgar the man who spared Grendel when his father was killed is also spared his Life in return.

Enter Beowulf a warrior hero with a reputation who is called in to help his comrade Hrothgar by slaying the murderous Grendel for seemingly just invading the home of the Danes and causing chaos . Everything is simple at first but as the story unravels things become less clear and one sided for Beowulf who learns more about the life of Grendel and the circumstances that he is now embroiled in.

The movie is grim looking, atmospheric though with the clear blue skies strong wind and rocky backdrops providing a character of the environment, the only thing i didn't like was the obvious costume of muscles placed on Grendel you could see straight away wasn't real though soon i forgot about it. The move is quite long and is very slow paced which i found fitted the story, it allows the events to boil up. Beowulf isn't a masterpiece but it is in my opinion a solid movie with some good characters. You have Gerald Butler as Beowulf, Sarah Polly who plays an witch girl who lives out of the village, Ingvar Eggert Sigurosson who plays Grendel and Stellan Skarsgard as King Hrothgar. Running for a time of 103 minutes here Beowulf and Grendel does of good job of keeping your eyes glued to the screen i watching the movie very unsure of what to expect and at the end was pleasantly surprised, by some solid performances impressive and imposing landscapes and interesting characters all round.



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