Beowulf & Grendel (2005) Movie Review, Trailer and Poster

Canada, UK, Iceland, USA, Australia 2005
Director: Sturla Gunnarsson
Cast: Gerard Butler, Stellan Skarsgård, Sarah Polley, Ingvar E. Sigurdsson, Tony Curran, Spencer Wilding
Rating: R
Release Date: 14 September 2005 (Canada)
Running Time: 1 hour 43 minutes

The Movie Review

Ouch...! What a disappointment... the legendary tale turns out to be this dull. It's an epic movie which loosely derived from the Anglo-Saxon epic poem, titled Beowulf. Even though they added 3 new characters from the original tale, which is a supposed-to-be highly creative, it doesn't add much. Gerard Butler roles as Beowulf the hero from the human-side sent from Geatland to help the Danes to slay the Troll called Grendel. Grendel holds great anger towards the Danes, because the Daneland' (old Denmark) King Hrothgar (Stellan Skarsgård), have killed Grendel's father for a very superficial reason.

After Grendel killed all 20 warriors sleeping in the hall,


BEOWULF & GRENDEL
Storyline:
Cast:
Ending:
Overall:

the king falls into great despair and indulge in boozing. Danes' king ask a favor from his old friend the king of geatland Hygelac, who soon dispatch Beowulf (Gerard Butler). And so Beowulf sets sail with 12 other Geat warriors to free the land of Danes. There they meet Selma the witch (Sarah Polley) who tells more about grendel (Ingvar E. Sigurdsson), and so the battle continues... Uhmm what battle?

I paid the admission ticket to see some cool epic fight, as what I got from The 13th Warrior (1999) which has many semblances, but all I saw was some gore moments of decapitating heads as well as other body parts as the results of the battle ensued in the dark... I'm not saying that the gore moments was a bad idea, cause I'm sure it will satisfy those gore and horror fans, but it feels like I saw a ninja movie but without the ever fantastic ninja style.

Fortunate enough for me, there are some good moments, emm there are 5 actually which are 2 comedic scenes, 2 erotic scenes (likely falls to MPAA rating of PG-13), and 1 dramatic scene of grendel. Grendel was designed not to look like a troll, but to be more of a sasquatch, which intended to be more believable for the audience. That's a thoughtful gesture, but do we all need to believe that all the characters in The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003) really exist in real life? The point is, the movie doesn't build up the tension, it builds up boredom. At one point my epic-loving friend actually told me he was going to the bathroom but never came back until the movie ended. I caught him sipping coffee outside and my first reaction was to tell him "Why did you leave?, the film was quite comedic!". Of course in a sarcastic manner.

Even though this film is that dull, it delivers a deep message of philosophy to remind us that we all share the same atmosphere, and not to judge a book by its cover, and maybe also not to judge the movie by its poster?

© iwan pranowo of Movielogy.com