I don’t know if this is the best version of the epic that has yet been done, but it’s certainly the best one I have seen, though I have to stress that it is still not very good. Filmed in Iceland with a strong cast, this adaptation at least has its heart in the right place, and some interesting ideas. Part of the failing of this film is from elements that it adds, and part of it derives from the source material and flaws that are essentially baked in, but this movie is at least trying to do a respectful treatment of the Beowulf legend.
The use of Iceland to stand in for Dark Ages Denmark was a good idea, as it presents the filmmakers with endlessly cool-looking, primal vistas of land and sea to set the mood. In a place like that, you just put an extra in armor and have him stand on the headland with a spear and bam – instant atmosphere. The film gets a huge shot of verisimilitude from this and from the generally excellent costuming and set design. The movie lets the vikings look colorful and use actual period armor and weapons, and it gives the whole thing an authentic feel.
The cast is pretty good here. Gerard Butler is actually one of the weaker links, as he never really comes across – he is just a good-looking guy with ridiculous L’Oreal hair and an indestructible Scots accent. Stellan Skarsgard is much better as the aging Hrothgar, successfully conveying the king’s despair as he fails to protect his people. Tony Curran and a very young Rory McCann turn up as secondary characters, and the background is filled out with a bunch of solid Scandinavian actors. Sarah Polley is here as a witch named Selma, and she is hilariously, radioactively miscast with her flat SoCal accent and her terrible wig – she seems like she just wandered in from some other movie.
The best performance here, really is from Icelandic actor Ingvar Sigurdsson as Grendel himself. Depicted, essentially, as a kind of primitive hominid, Sigurdsson’s Grendel is a highly believable creation, and his commitment to the role creates a distinctive, frightening monster who is still very human. He is shown as a being as capable of intelligence and emotion as anyone, but also indelibly, savagely strange, stamped with a deep hatred and sense of vengeance, and very alone. Sigurdsson is not a huge guy, but the tricks of perspective they use to make him look like a towering monster work pretty well.
The real failing here is in the script, because the poem does not have enough action in it to fill out a movie, even when you include Grendel’s mother. The film feels like it has to add some prequel-styled scenes to explain that Hrothgar killed Grendel’s dad and that’s why the whole thing gets started. It also spends a lot of time showing us Beowulf before he arrives without showing him doing anything, so it comes across as slow and very talky. The movie as a whole is slow and heavy with dialogue, which contrasts sharply with the way it was marketed as a kickass action piece.
The movie also dawdles getting to the big fight between Beowulf and Grendel, trying to draw things out and add more resonance. An issue with the source material is that Beowulf just shows up to fight the monster with no personal stakes, and for a modern movie that’s a problem. Here Beowulf is depicted as rather ambivalent about killing Grendel. He sees the need to end the slaughter, but he feels like the monster has a reason for his vendetta, and as a result we have a protagonist whose motivation feels vague, and who does not really drive the action forward. In this version, he does not even sever Grendel’s arm, but rather catches it in a snare and then the monster cuts off his own arm to escape – which is an interesting twist, but it doesn’t work. Grendel could have easily escaped another way, and so it seems like he cuts off his own frigging arm for no real reason.
The editing and pacing of the film is rather inept, as there are long dialogue scenes that don’t really go anywhere, or that impart needed information but take far too long to do it, while important scenes often seem truncated or rushed. Thus the movie as a whole rather lacks focus, with the central rivalry sketched but not detailed, and a hero who just seems to be there without any really strong reason to be involved. The cinematography and action are well-done, the music is lackluster, and while the movie labors to elevate all of this into myth, it never manages it.
The production was famously difficult, and there was an award-winning documentary about the filming called Wrath of Gods that detailed the unbelievably bad weather that plagued the set and threatened the lives of nearly everyone involved. It says pretty much all you need to know that a movie about the making of Beowulf & Grendel was far better received than the product itself, and tells a much more interesting story.
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