Beowulf & Grendel | 
| Director: Sturla Gunnarsson
Actors: Hringur Ingvarsson, Spencer Wilding, Stellan Skarsgard, Ingvar Eggert Sigur Sson, Gunnar Eyjolfsson
Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.98
Buy Used: $1.58
You Save: $13.40 (89%)
New (52) Used (66) from $1.58
Rating:  196 reviews
Sales Rank: 7883
Format: Color, Dolby, Import, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 103 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: DV72120
UPC: 013137212093
EAN: 0013137212093
ASIN: B000GIXEIG
Theatrical Release Date: 2005
Release Date: September 26, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
THIS TELLS THE BLOODY TALE OF WARRIOR BEOWULF'S BATTLE WITH GRENDEL, A MURDEROUS TROLL. THE BATTLE-SCARRED HERO BEOWULF LEADS A TROOP OF WARRIORS TO HELP KING HROTHGAR, WHOSE KINGDOM IS DESTROYED BY GRENDEL. HOWEVER, BEOWULF'S ATTEMPTS TO FIGHT THE TROLL ARE THWARTED WHEN GRENDEL REFUSES TO ENGAGE IN BATTLE.
Amazon.com
The 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 Skarsgard, 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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| Customer Reviews: Read 191 more reviews...
 Packed with action but no mahic June 20, 2009
Jacques COULARDEAU (OLLIERGUES France)
The scenery is flabbergasting and awe-inspiring. Beautiful mountains and fjords, vertiginous seascape and landscape, little winter and snow. It is not a film about the cold north but the heroic pagan mystery of this northern climes. Pagan with some beings coming from we do not know where, though the troll is explained very clearly from the very start as being the son of a man who was killed in some atrocious way by some Danes, just because he was coming from somewhere else and he "stole" a fish. The son then escapes and survives in nature alone. He becomes a wild child that does not speak any human language and is only looking for his vengeance on the Danish chief who had his father killed and who spared the child's life out of some human feeling. Beowulf is the one who is going to get that "troll", and the story is very close to the English Beowulf, though they try once again to make things look natural, normal. It kills in many ways the meaning and the power of some symbols, and you will never know that Beowulf used a sword from the giants who were on earth before human beings, and that this sword is decorated with runes and interlacing runic tangles. The fact that he has to resort to this sword he finds in the hoard of the mother of this Grendel, some kind of unexplained amphibious monster, appears to be a simple accident, while it is an essential and meaningful element: these monsters are the descendants of the giants that dominated the world before human beings. Some future is told by a witch but she uses bones instead of using the famous runes. The most important addition to this film, as compared to the original story, is this witch who was more or less raped once by Grendel and who got a son from him. Does this element give any humanity to the tale? I do not think so. Does it emphasizes the pagan side of the tale? Maybe but we have to say the repetitive christenings are at least counterbalancing this pagan element. The last interesting side of the film is the realistic rendition of the habitat of these northern human beings and that is neither comfortable, nor in anyway clean or well-ordered. It sure is the story of humanity emerging out of old phases of animal or pre-human existence, but this emergence is identified too much with the Christianization of Scandinavia. In one word is a good film of action though it is rather naive as for the real anthropological or even archeological dimension of the story, and it is rather too far from the Anglo-Saxon poem to be considered as a fair adaptation of the first part of this poem. We are missing the dragon of the second part and the death of the hero.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines, CEGID
Not the CGI one! February 25, 2009
Dwayne Hickman (USA)
Movie was pretty good. However, I thought this was the new one that was computer generated. It's not! As such, it may be on BluRay, but it's really not much better than an upconverted regular DVD.
 Beowulf & Grendel [Blu-ray February 11, 2009
mike boyd
its not bad, but i thought it could be better tho, but it is woth seeing
 Beowulf & Grendel Review January 19, 2009
C. Egan
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
In this movie Beowulf leads his warriors across the sea to help his friend King Hrothgar, whose kingdom is being terrorized by a troll, whose name is Grendel. But Grendel won't fight him. And it gets worse when he meets Selma, a witch. This tale kind of drags on, but it is beautifully filmed, and beautifully enacted; you have to be able to really WATCH it. It takes a while to get it. But once you do, it is really worth the watch.
 Not Made Well January 16, 2009
GixxxerKim (Heathentown, NY USA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This movie was very choppy, the lines sucked. The accents were existent in ALL dialects. The only things that were this movies saving graces were its sharp foul language, and the select scenes of Iceland. Otherwise the king's realm was lacking. It looked like he had 20 people to govern over, and the only building existing was his mead hall on the hill. Yet they had beautiful clothing for the queen. Where was all this made?
Sarah Polley was horrible. No hint of an accent at all, and her lines were lacking enthusiasm as well as timing sometimes. Her uppity attitude didn't seem to flow with the movie either.
Very interesting twist on how Grendel lost his arm, and even the beginning of the story. . . The reason why Grendel is so angry and blood thirsty. Also it had a lot more pagan flavor than I expected. It was refreshing actually, but not that deep.
Very unbelievable, yet I watched it because of Gerard Butler, and Tony Curran. But just because a few guys fro 300 and/or 13th Warrior were in this, obviously didn't make it a good movie. Want a better Viking movie? 13th Warrior. At least the story flowed better, the accents were adequate, and the characters lines were fitting. I don't recommend it.
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