Starring Gerard Butler!!! -squeals-

Ahem. But to the review...

It's based on the old Anglo-Saxon epic poem but since I haven't read the original I have no idea how close a reworking this may be. Though, judging from the swear words peppering the script, it may be more of a modern retelling than a faithful rendition of the actual poem.

The plot goes like this: King of the Danes Hrothgar kills a troll for stealing a fish but somehow decides to be mercifull and spares the troll's son, who witnessed the brutal murder of troll senior. Troll junior, Grendel, grows up and seeks revenge by killing Danes. The people are terrified but the Danish warriors cannot kill the pesky troll. Cue (trumpets blaring, heroic music playing) the hero from abroad - the great warrior Beowulf. He leaves his native Geatland to come to Hrothgar's aid - the two are pretty close; Beowulf seems to have spent some of his childhood in Daneland. Anyway Beowulf sets out to kill Grendel but soon comes to see that Grendel is not the monster he is made out to be.

The movie does a good job of showing how senseless revenge can be and how once started, a cycle of hatred never ends. The sheer pathos is never directly brought out but it's beautifully and subtly relayed in several wordless scenes. This is made possible through the masterful acting of Stellan Skarsgard (Hrothgar) and Sarah Polley (Selma). Hrothgar's anguish at the slaughter of his people, his guilt at having ironically started all this by allowing Grendel to live, and his helplessness and anger at his inability to salvage the situation come across strongly in every line and every expression. Selma is the dissenting voice who tries to protect Grendel - her cold pronouncements against Beowulf's hunting down Grendel serve as a sharp but melodious counterpoint against Hrothgar's emotion.

Grendel is sensitively portrayed as a complex figure. He is clearly bestial in that he eats people (scenes of his cave where piles of human flesh lie around) but he is also very touchingly human - he plays games, he protects the people who protect him, he even speaks (although no one except the witch Selma can understand his speech). As we watch Grendel and the bitter conflict between him and the Danes we become all too aware that we are one step away from animality. Grendel, for all his barbarous behaviour, sometimes seems more noble than his persecutors. In one particularly emotional scene the baby Grendel takes up the sword that killed his father, cuts off his father's head, and then, crying all while, carries the head tenderly home and sets it up in a sort of shrinelike niche in the wall of his cave. His actions are hard to sort out - violence and bestiality are all rolled up here with distinctly human and noble values like familial piety.

Beowulf almost has the show stolen from him by Grendel. All would have been lost if Butler had just stuck with the 'hero' angle. But thankfully this Beowulf is a hero who thinks, a confused hero who considers the consequences of his actions, and a slightly insecure hero who needs reassurance every now and then. There are parts where Butler overdoes the macho intensity thing (but damn he's good at that intense stare thing) but in my book, he redeems it with one particular scene where he talks to Grendel (ok he needed Selma to translate for him but it was still a verbal exchange) and there is a bit of hilarity - Grendel throws a rock at him which hits him squarely on his helmeted forehead and Butler does a very real, very charming, very COMIC "ow" and rails ineffectually up at Grendel. Cute. And this show also reminds me why I like Butler so much - he is charming, and funny, in an understated, very real sort of way.

In terms of technique, the movie was a mite choppy. Scenes switch very abruptly and very often. However, the setting was beautiful and there are long, loving shots of the incredibly gorgeous scenery which would raise this movie from a mere period revenge story to (almost) a true epic tale. Even the character's very, very blunt language seem to add to the heroic feel.

So. I really liked this one. It's actually a GOOD movie in it's own right and not just something I'll watch simply because Butler's in it. I'll be rewatching it.

Hehe great review. My parents watched this one, and I quarter-watched it. Or perhaps less, since I didn't even notice Gerard Butler was in it.

Speaking of swear words, I just watched the Libertine but I'm too tired to write a review for it...did they really call people "cunts"? And they had dildoes then?! Speaking of that, in Total Eclipse, Leo DiCap went the f word once or twice too..

I really have no idea. I don't think the Danes said "fuck" either but hey, they probably had the equivalent. So I think the movie folks were trying to get at the realistic, macho gritty feel of the times? Good job they did. Not excessive cussing like some directors feel compelled to put in, but people do swear when things go horribly wrong, or when a troll throws a rock at you.

Ye gods. You didnae notice Butler? -mock horror-

Haha, yeah. Ahem, when something doesn't catch my attention, I wander off elsewhere..

I'm not sure, but whenever that happens I just feel a jolt. Like seeing someone in medieval times refer to his wristwatch. Just..strange.

But that be a pretty big anachronism, no? Unless the movie were 'Timeline' or something lah...

Hmm does that also mean that you have a pretty romantic version of the middle ages? Like, parfit gentil knights and genteel ladies and all?

Yes. Yes, I am guilty of that. And people who smell nice and look beautiful even though they probably wash once a week. XD

Then again, my idea of medieval ages tends to go into fantasy (or, least, that's what I read ), so I suppose that could be very possible.

Yeah sometimes I'm guilty of that too. But at other times, I can't help but wonder... How bad do these people smell man? Especially the knights in chain mail. You must be able to smell them from really far off... And those fantasy stories... Why don't they ever stop to go to the loo? And what about the women? What do they do when they get their periods? -frets needlessly-

It's a -story-, dear. Little details like that, we don't need to know. More like, we don't -want- to know.

As Thursday Next (Jasper Fforde's heroine in the series of the same name) finds out in her foray to the Book World - lots of things they don't do there. Amusing, really.

But a story's got to be plausible right? I mean, maybe it's an elf thing, but... running hundreds of kilometres without a toilet break? C'mon... -grumbles-

Elves do that? Wow. -renewed respect for that species- Superior bladder control for the non-humans.

Lord of the Rings, methinks. Remember when Legolas, Aragorn and Gimli marathon-ed from one end of Middle Earth to another? Or maybe they stopped for loo breaks but Tolkien, being the genteel sort, decided to leave that out.

Methinks one great challenge for writers is to write a graceful scene involving going to the loo. Or, for the female characters, solving the problem of periods. Especially when they're haring off on some quest in some godforsaken place. Or for female warriors.

It's a..delicate subject. And generally nothing interesting goes on in there, right? So it's not really worth mentioning...

I mean, hey, unless someone's period adds some significant character development or plot movement, what's the point of including the gory details? XD (And risk putting people off)

I don't remember, though. I fell asleep halfway through Two Towers, so I've only read Hobbit and Fellowship..

Like Anne Bishops's Jewel Trilogy? That was pretty interesting. In a very allegorical kinda way, everything she writes is kinda true, no? We ARE weakened once a month (generally)... She took something banal and not particularly genteel and amplified it. Cool. ^.^

Ahh yeah. I agree. The books are boring. I like Silmarillion a lot though. Wonder if someone (hopefully Peter Jackson) will turn it into a movie...

Silmarillion? What's it about?

I agree, just like Anne Bishop does it. Because, let's face it, books are condensed fantasies of things that'd probably never happen to us - adventures, horror, even everyday lives, themselves, are special in that - it's someone else's. (I suppose that's where the lure of reality TV lies, though thankfully the players' toilet time remains their own, there. XD) People want to read about forbidden things, or things that're new, that excite them. Somehow, going to the loo just isn't that interesting.

I read somewhere once that to have a story, something out of the ordinary needed to happen. I suppose mundane things, unless made non-quotidian like Anne Bishop did with periods, would never find a place in the typical story. At best, they'd be glossed over within the scene of "taking a break". Speaking of female warriors, it must have been very hard for them, especially with primitive sanitary pad technique. Hai.

Precisely! And what's worse, no Panadol Menstrual! My God I'd DIE without that... -shudders- Though they probably had nifty herbs for it. =D

Well yeah something extraordinary has to happen but it doesn't mean that once something not so ordinary happens the ordinary things cease to exist, or stop mattering. Extraordinary things happen - usually - in a normal, mundane context. You know what would be fun to read? A world WITHOUT such things like going to the loo or bleeding your insides out once a month. Or a world where EVERYONE, both male and female, did that. Hah!

Silmarillion... You know LotR is set in the Third Age of Middle Earth? Silmarillion is what happens in the First Age. There's a Genesis story and then there are lots of stories of how the Bad Guys and how the elves got to Middle Earth, the extensive warfare, etc etc. Dramatic stuff. Reads like a real, ancient manuscript from another world.