FrogGlace In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Jerrie It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Wyatt There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

frederic-127-281006 I have seen this movie after watching the 2007 version on French television. My memory of the Beowulf saga was a black and white picture of a gigantic arm hanging with warriors around. This picture was so terrible that as a youth I kept hiding the book itself, afraid as I was to see the arm escape. The story of Beowulf is tragic. Most Nordic tales are tragic. The great quality of this movie is to actually show the landscape of the Dane Mark of lore. This is the land, which inspired Odin. Great empty spaces. Cold and clear streams. Arid mountains. And a few dwellings by the sea. It could have inspired Kurosawa who would have put ink in the rain to make it dark. It is a very good movie with a true story of love, and recognition. That the land we own today was the land of people before, and that we are trespassers. There is a message of hope, though. Races do mix, and horror is beaten. The tale continues. Excellent movie!

donnabarr "Beowulf and Grendel." "Grendel and Beowulf." Grinder and Bear.They both work as titles, from the viewpoints of the good guy and bad guy -- and their view of themselves as the wounded party.I was going to go into all the reasons why Beowulf is an Excuse Tale, written in a later time after centuries of re-telling. But Paul Stephens, in his interview, says it better. In fact, everything in Special Features is worth watching, especially "Wrath of Gods." There are no trolls or dragons or sea-serpents in reality, and this is an even more modern attempt to understand why the tale is so important and where it may actually have come from. As inheritors of the conquests of the New World, this is a movie that can explain what happened and why. "He crossed our path -- he took a fish" is all it takes to start a devastating war between the natives and the invaders.Watch it twice; first without the commentary, and then -- don't miss the commentary; it's hilarious and a bit horrible, IE, "We didn't behead the actor for real because we were going to need him in a few more scenes." After what everybody goes through, it's obvious they've all gone a little crazy, in a miniature version of Coppola's wife's "Heart of Darkness." This is the purest form of movie-making. No CGI, actors panting and gasping because they have to, the viewer's mouth hanging open as a half-naked man is dipped into an icy Icelandic stream. A car window is shattered by wind-driven pebbles. Actors are blown off their marks. Beaches are washed away, and disappear under racing tides. The director has no mercy. Ford would have understood.And the horses -- Icelandic horses. All of them doing the Tølt they're famous for, and hitting their marks. In the commentary they're introduced with admiration and fanfare. But so are the glaciers: "We told the grips to wear spikes on their boots, because if any of them slid into those fissures, nobody was going in after them." "There's Brendan, blessing the joint," says somebody in the commentary, referring to the mad saint."You want a beer? Let's get a beer!" is an ad-lib, because by then everybody needed one.Just go get it or ask your library to order it. There is no way you will be sorry (Unless you accept the western movies from the 1930's as historical and are sad anybody did any real research).

rowmorg It's hard to believe that this film is set in 500 CE, after the Roman Empire had transformed most of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East into a vast trading network with a sophisticated literature and widespread underfloor heating. The Nordic barbarians in 'Beowulf & Grendel' barely hang on in a treeless landscape with permanent filthy weather. Their womenfolk play a less prominent role in society than Moslem women, and the men are obsessed with killing. In my opinion, this is a bogus and misleading depiction of Nordic life. It has been shown that Vikings, for example, were gifted farmers who built solid communities. I was brought up in one, Rottingdean in Sussex, England. Rote (redhead), inge (folk), dene (valley). In other words, the valley of the people of the Redhead. The name has lasted for fifteen hundred years, and you don't achieve that by killing everyone and downgrading women. The fact is, that the Vikings traded with Mediterranean countries, reached America, and became the famous Normans who defeated England and built the aristocracy. The gormless wretches in this movie bear no relation IMO. I'm not going to echo those who bemoan the travestying of an ancient bardic text. A commercial movie could hardly do that; the popcorn crowd would stay away in droves. However, I do think that tacking on a sexy 'wtich' (Sarah Polley), who survives by building (interlocking) stone circles and planting things in crevices, is going a bit far, particularly when she has intercourse with Beowulf in the politically-correct 'cowgirl' position. This gesture to the ladies in the audience is destroyed by the foul language used by the barbarians, which rules out the film's use in the English classroom for Beowulf studies, which is a shame. I think Mr. Gersins, the screenwriter, must take responsibility for most of the popcorn rubbish in this production. Perhaps he was a co-investor (with a long list of national film agencies) and hyper-concerned about a return on his cash. Sad, because his modish bad language and sex-interest paradoxically may have wrecked his chances. Worth a viewing, if only for what might have been.

J Vaughn This movie has many redeeming qualities but managed to have enough ludicrous diversions from the Anglo-Saxon poem to receive an indisputable "thumbs down". Let's start with the good aspects: the clothing was great, Heorot looked authentic; the actors were skillfully selected; Grendel's stature and acting was very convincing; Grendel's mother and the scenes with her were perfect; the horses (ponies) were historically correct; the boat (hring-stefna) and the scenes with the icebergs were amazing. Now let's peruse the plethora of negative aspects: Hrothgar was a drunken moron, unlike the Hrothgar presented in the poem; Grendel is a sympathetic hero who cuts his own arm off and tosses Beowulf around like a rag-doll; The Christian missionary is a weak moron-not that there were not weak Christian morons in the northern islands in the 10th and 11th centuries, but the portrayal of this character comes across as ironically "preachy"; God is a joke, which contradicts the entire poem's tone. The premise to this movie is an absurd speculative theory that the pagan oral story/poem "Beowulf" was "Christianized" by a tampering Christian author. This is, well, absurd. On the contrary many critics feel that the Christian elements in the poem are so thoroughly entwined in the poem's actors, dialogue and plot that the poem would fall apart without them. The need that progressive story and film writers feel to rewrite this epic poem is changing the way modern readers of this poem interpret this work. Please, Peter Jackson could you take two years of your life and produce a Beowulf movie that is free from 21st century literary criticism!