Beowulf and Grendel

To celebrate the beginnings of my reviewing blog I am going to try to start it with a triple creature feature.  That’s right, three films filled with bloodthirsty monsters.  Not just any monsters but Grendel and his mother.  That’s right, two of the biggest named monsters in ancient literature. Well, okay, two of the three films are actually more realistic depictions and so in them Grendel only really counts as some sort of Neanderthal-like species.  Scary, right?  Because I’m sure you are like me and Australopithecus haunted your nightmares when you were a kid, too, correct?  Ah, well, one out of three ain’t bad.

The first film I will discuss is the movie Beowulf and Grendel was released in 2005 and aimed at humanizing the scourge of Heorot.  In this film Grendel is more the hero than Beowulf and far from being treated as an evil descendant of Cain is (intended to be) portrayed as a wronged and persecuted troll. Let me just begin by saying this film replaces archetypal themes completely with political correctness. The film begins where a young Grendel (played by a child actor with fake facial hair) witnesses Hrothgar murder his father before his eyes and swears revenge on the Danes.  For those of you familiar with the poem you are probably calling bullshit on this since the poem says this of Grendel and his mother, “They are fatherless creatures, and their whole ancestry is hidden in a past of demons and ghosts.  They dwell apart among wolves on the hills, on windswept crags and treacherous keshes, where cold streams pour down the mountain and disappear under mist and moorland.”  Oh yeah, and Grendel killed people because he was an evil descendent of Cain not because of daddy issues.  Still I find this change somewhat forgivable in the sense that that line makes little sense taken literally considering we already know the lines Patriarch.

Maybe Beowulf will be more interesting at least?  I mean he was played by Gerard Butler the man who was Leonidas in 300.  That film may be stupid but it certainly had great action sequences.  Surely he can bring on the action like few else.  Nope, Beowulf does just about nothing of importance in this film.  He mainly talks with Hrothgar and Grendel, gets angsty about whether he is doing the right thing, gets bitched at by his designated love interest (the worst character by far), and then gets angsty some more.  Get this, this trainwreck is the only adaption of the poem where Beowulf doesn’t kill Grendel.  Instead Grendel chops off his own arm after getting trapped by a rope after raiding Heorot. The protagonist in this film is useless. The small action scenes are mainly garbage. He is a far cry from the Beowolf from the poem who can swim for five days while killing nine sea-beasts.  To the films credit Butler is given one chance to display his skill in a cool but extremely short action scene which is unfortunately used as a cutaway gag.  Beowulf tells someone that he doesn’t get mad during fights and then it cuts to him having an admittedly awesome fight where an enraged Beowulf takes on a gang of guys and then cuts back to his smug face.  I hate this film.

Hrothgar, the famed Danish king, can be summed up in three words in this film, whipped, drunkard and coward.  His wife berates him for being shocked by Grendel’s massacre of his people.  Unlike the king who would drink at feasts to be merry now he drinks to try to appease his guilt for pissing off Grendel.  He expresses a deep fear of death and hell which later drives him to convert to Christianity which was preached by a freaky mercenary who would randomly froth at the mouth.  Yeah this film is pretty blatant with its antichristian stance even though by the time Beowulf was written down it was fully Christianized.  I really resent being beaten over the head with an message like this irregardless if I agree with it or not. 

The film tells us that Grendel won’t kill Hrothgar because even though he killed his father he spared him as a child.  For that the kind-hearted Grendel instead murders innocent Danes who have no connection with his father’s death.  Such benevolence!  This might make sense with the wergild (or man-price) and blood-feud concept of the time period was properly explained and included but considering this film is totally modernized Grendel is really just a prick.  The film crappily crams down the idea that Grendel has the moral high ground so much that Hrothgar totally becomes the most likeable character.  Someone who actually wants to kill Grendel and not talk about their feelings with him?  I like this cat already!  Oh and Hrothgar totally cusses like a sailor (Viking?) which is so idiotic it is funny and gives the movie all its best lines.

Grendel’s father was not the only new character to be introduced.  The writer knowing that the poem Beowulf had almost no women and in an attempt to try to expand the demographic of the movie created an important female character, Selma.  The pagan witch Selma is the typical Hollywood character type of the prostitute with a heart of gold.  It is implied throughout the film that she has some strong tie to Grendel.  It is later revealed that Grendel once raped her in the night and she gave birth to his half-troll son.  Even though this is a heinous crime, she is fiercely protective of Grendel and her true anger is directed against what she views as the true evil, the Danes.  Making matters more bizarre she is meant to be portraying a female role model despite her justifying her own rape.  The implications of this plot I frankly find gross and disturbing.  But the worst part of all is she probably could have convinced Grendel to stop his rampages at any time, and saved countless lives, had she actually wanted to.  While she is intended to be a feminist character she seems to be one in the Valerie Salonas mold.

                I really wish beastiality wasn’t an important part of so many Beowulf films.  This film is probably the worst offender of all due to its hypocrisy.  At one point Hrothgar makes fun of a rival king, Sig, who he claimed had sex with animals and Beowulf ate it up and laughed uproariously. Considering Grendel is indeed mentally retarded and forced sex upon someone the acts are really not all that different.  Then the movie expects us to go awww to the interspecies rape towards the end.  Beowulf then has sex with Selma herself after she tells him about it because….uh.  What the hell movie?

                After Grendel dies of his self-inflicted wounds his mother flips out and starts killing people.  She is some sort of sea-hag like in the poem which I would be thankful for if it didn’t completely defeat the purpose of making Grendel halfway realistic.  Anyway Beowulf kills her in a scene not even the movie seems to care about.  Seriously, Grendel’s kid watches the murder of the sea-hag but he gives up on revenge after Beowulf pays his respects to Grendel’s grave.  The kid is not at all concerned about his grandmother as she was clearly filler anyway.  Beowulf sails off again to be useless elsewhere.  Roll credits.

                Don’t get me wrong I love bad movies but this film is just unforgivable.  My final verdict is a 1/5 due to the anachronistic profanity being somewhat funny for a few minutes.  I award no points for the beautiful shots of Iceland because even if you film in a beautiful location that doesn’t fix a horrible film.  The film is very much a product of being created in the Bush years.  Just as The Crucible is more about McCarthyism than witchcraft, Beowulf and Grendel feels more like a backlash against the cultural stereotype of good Americans and evil terrorists than an serious attempt at retelling Beowulf.    Considering that the archetypes that Beowulf is based on are timeless, I think it a shame to use them to comment on current cultural attitudes that can change like the wind.  Just as Grendel pisses on the door to Heorot in the beginning of the film writer Andrew Berzins pisses on the poem.  Also like troll piss, this film really stinks. Overall, I cannot recommend this film to anyone but considering the name of this blog chances are you might just watch it anyway.