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IMDbPro

Beowulf & Grendel

  • 20052005
  • RR
  • 1h 43m
IMDb RATING
5.8/10
18K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
13,224
196
Gerard Butler in Beowulf & Grendel (2005)
Home Video Trailer from Anchor Bay Entertainment
Play trailer2:06
1 Video
49 Photos
ActionAdventureDrama
In Denmark, during the 6th century, Danish king Hrothgar and his warriors kill a troll whose son, Grendel, vows revenge.In Denmark, during the 6th century, Danish king Hrothgar and his warriors kill a troll whose son, Grendel, vows revenge.In Denmark, during the 6th century, Danish king Hrothgar and his warriors kill a troll whose son, Grendel, vows revenge.
IMDb RATING
5.8/10
18K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
13,224
196
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Director
      • Sturla Gunnarsson
    • Writers
      • Anonymous(epic poem "Beowulf")
      • Andrew Rai Berzins
    • Stars
      • Hringur Ingvarsson
      • Spencer Wilding
      • Stellan Skarsgård
    Top credits
    • Director
      • Sturla Gunnarsson
    • Writers
      • Anonymous(epic poem "Beowulf")
      • Andrew Rai Berzins
    • Stars
      • Hringur Ingvarsson
      • Spencer Wilding
      • Stellan Skarsgård
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 173User reviews
    • 62Critic reviews
    • 53Metascore
    • Awards
      • 1 win & 6 nominations

    Videos1

    Beowulf and Grendel
    Trailer 2:06
    Beowulf and Grendel

    Photos49

    Beowulf & Grendel (2005)
    Gerard Butler and Martin Delaney in Beowulf & Grendel (2005)
    Gerard Butler and Tony Curran in Beowulf & Grendel (2005)
    Stellan Skarsgård and Gerard Butler in Beowulf & Grendel (2005)
    Stellan Skarsgård in Beowulf & Grendel (2005)
    Stellan Skarsgård and Eddie Marsan in Beowulf & Grendel (2005)
    Eddie Marsan in Beowulf & Grendel (2005)
    Stellan Skarsgård and Gerard Butler in Beowulf & Grendel (2005)
    Stellan Skarsgård in Beowulf & Grendel (2005)
    Stellan Skarsgård in Beowulf & Grendel (2005)
    Stellan Skarsgård in Beowulf & Grendel (2005)
    Stellan Skarsgård and Steinunn Ólína Þorsteinsdóttir in Beowulf & Grendel (2005)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Hringur Ingvarsson
    Hringur Ingvarsson
    • Young Grendel
    Spencer Wilding
    Spencer Wilding
    • Grendel's Father
    Stellan Skarsgård
    Stellan Skarsgård
    • Hrothgar
    Ingvar Sigurdsson
    Ingvar Sigurdsson
    • Grendel
    • (as Ingvar E. Sigurdsson)
    Gunnar Eyjólfsson
    Gunnar Eyjólfsson
    • Aeschere
    Gerard Butler
    Gerard Butler
    • Beowulf
    Philip Whitchurch
    Philip Whitchurch
    • Fisherman
    Ronan Vibert
    Ronan Vibert
    • Thorkel
    Rory McCann
    Rory McCann
    • Breca
    Tony Curran
    Tony Curran
    • Hondscioh
    Martin Delaney
    Martin Delaney
    • Thorfinn
    Mark Lewis
    • King Hygelac
    Elva Ósk Ólafsdóttir
    • Sea Hag
    Ólafur Darri Ólafsson
    Ólafur Darri Ólafsson
    • Unferth
    Steinunn Ólína Þorsteinsdóttir
    Steinunn Ólína Þorsteinsdóttir
    • Wealtheow
    • (as Steinunn Ólína Thorsteinsdóttir)
    Sarah Polley
    Sarah Polley
    • Selma
    Eddie Marsan
    Eddie Marsan
    • Father Brendan
    Gísli Örn Garðarsson
    Gísli Örn Garðarsson
    • Erik
    • (as Gísli Örn Gardarsson)
    • Director
      • Sturla Gunnarsson
    • Writers
      • Anonymous(epic poem "Beowulf")
      • Andrew Rai Berzins
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      In 1731, the original manuscript that the movie is based on was severely damaged by fire, along with several other medieval writings, in London UK.
    • Goofs
      While the Daneland portrayed in the movie has many mountains, cliffs and rocks, the real Denmark does not. Denmark has no rock formations, and very few steep cliffs.
    • Quotes

      Beowulf: Has this thing, this troll, killed any children?

      King Hrothgar: No.

      Beowulf: Women?

      [Hrothgar shakes his head]

      Beowulf: Old men?

      King Hrothgar: What are you saying? That he fights with a clean heart? He kills the strongest first. He shows us he can kill the strongest. Who cares if he spares the children? They'll die anyway without fathers.

      Beowulf: My wits still war with how this all began.

      King Hrothgar: Hate for the mead hall. I can only guess. The night we finished it the foul creep came.

      Beowulf: So, nothing was done to the troll itself?

      King Hrothgar: Oh, Beowulf, it's a fucking troll! Maybe someone looked at it the wrong way.

      Beowulf: Some Dane?

      King Hrothgar: ...I never begged anyone to come here. Take on our fight. I don't hold you here.

      Beowulf: I know you don't.

      King Hrothgar: Then don't sour my heart with talk about why a troll does what a fucking troll does!

    • Connections
      Featured in Wrath of Gods (2006)

    User reviews173

    Review
    Top review
    6/10
    Epic as rough noise
    The ninth century Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf recounts the exploits of a hero of the Danes who saves them from a monster, Grendel, and the creature's vengeful mother, and then, decades later, dies fighting a dragon. This is an oral epic like Homer, which means it was composed and recomposed by oral bards among an illiterate but highly verbal people and "passed on" (actually constantly varied and renewed) in that way for many generations, and only later, when the tradition was waning, was written down. Epics, especially oral ones, have something in common. They are the embodiment of the primary values of the nation and culture they come from and represent. Their purpose is not just to entertain, but also to instruct, to inspire, to move, to instill pride in and knowledge of traditions and history. In a sense they tell stories everybody knows – everybody of the nation or culture – but they also preserve the values, the traditions, and the history and legend of the tribe. We don't know much about those traditions found in Beowulf, but in Iceland they do, and this movie was made in Iceland by an Icelandic director, Sturla Gunnarsson, who lives in Canada.

    Anglo-Saxon poetry is alliterative, haunting, sad, and in a language utterly unlike modern English, completely strange. Here's how the poem begins, with translations for each line.

    (You will have to look elsewhere, because the format of this website does not allow foreign languages.)

    Which has been translated:

    LO, praise of the prowess of people-kings of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped, we have heard, and what honor the athelings won! Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes, from many a tribe, the mead-bench tore, awing the earls. Since erst he lay friendless, a foundling, fate repaid him: for he waxed under welkin, in wealth he throve, till before him the folk, both far and near, who house by the whale-path, heard his mandate, gave him gifts: a good king he!

    Along comes a movie, which doesn't have much US distribution but is currently showing in New York (July 2006). And I'm told there was a version with Christopher Lambert, but I have not seen it.

    There are many translations but one by a poet of distinction recently done is that of the Irish poet Seamus Heaney. Here are a couple of short passages from Heaney's version:

    You have won renown: you are known to all men far and near, now and forever. Your sway is wide as the wind's

    It is always better to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning. For every one of us, living in this world means waiting for our end. Let whoever can win glory before death. When a warrior is gone, That will be his best and only bulwark.

    This atmosphere that comes in the poem, even from a few lines, the importance of fame, of reputation, a deep fatalism, a sense of the power of nature and overwhelming sadness, are typical of Beowulf and of Anglo-Saxon poetry. But whether you get any of that from the movie I don't know.

    What you do get is plenty of cussing, of F-words and S-words, spoken even by King Hrothgar and Beowulf himself, and body functions, and sexual intercourse – with a monster, who, for reasons best known to the filmmakers, is referred to as a "troll." Perhaps in Iceland a "troll" can be a giant, but in English the word has more often been used for a dwarf. Grendel isn't a dwarf. In the poem you don't see him clearly. He has scales. He's a monster. In the movie he's a big man who babbles incomprehensibly and has big muscles. He's like the Hulk.

    It's rather unfortunate that Sarah Polley plays a witch, one who has intercourse literally with both troll and man. Everybody else has some sort of rustic English accent, but she speaks mall American. That doesn't work, and neither does her presence.

    In the time of the Angles and the Saxons, the mead hall was a place for carousing, but also a semi holy place. Men got drunk and swore oaths, which they were bound to for life. The mead hall scenes are huge in Beowulf, but they just look like moments from any minor historical mélange here in this movie. Hrothgar's hall's structure is realistically represented from the outside, though.

    The snowy Icelandic landscape has an austere beauty that is one of the best things about this movie.

    Ingvar Sigurdsson as Grendel is impressive; but it would still be more evocative of the story and the poem not to see him clearly. Gerard Butler is dashing as Beowulf. But the way he talks! Stellan Skarsgård as King Hrothgar appears very beaten down; in the poem he is, indeed, depressed and presumably drunken, but somehow that is nobler in the mind than on the screen.

    Whereas there's a lot of history -- epics are repositories of history -- in Beowulf the poem, in the movie things and people aren't explained very much. You get a rough idea, but explanation is almost totally omitted, even though every once in a while somebody in a boat speaks a few lines of poetry carrying the story forwrd.

    The music by Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson is astonishing and powerful, though it isn't the sad, slow music of the Anglos-Saxon poem. This is of course an action movie. But there isn't quite enough action. It made me think of the wonderful example of dramatic narrative on film, which is so succinct and gripping and atmospheric, and which evokes an archaic time among Scandanavian peoples: Nils Gaup's 1987 Pathfinder/Ofelas, a Norwegian-Finnish production shot in the snow. Smashing. Find it and watch it.
    helpful•8
    4
    • Chris Knipp
    • Jul 7, 2006

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • March 9, 2006 (Thailand)
    • Countries of origin
      • Canada
      • United Kingdom
      • Iceland
      • United States
      • Australia
    • Official site
      • Official site
    • Languages
      • English
      • Latin
      • Icelandic
    • Also known as
      • Beowulf ve Grendel
    • Filming locations
      • Iceland
    • Production companies
      • Movision
      • Endgame Entertainment
      • Beowulf Productions Limited
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $68,820
    • Opening weekend US & Canada
      • $4,360
      • Jun 18, 2006
    • Gross worldwide
      • $92,076
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 43 minutes
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Dolby Digital
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.78 : 1(original negative)
      • 2.35 : 1

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