Beowulf & Grendel (2005)

What the heck, I did the crappy 07 Beowulf, and while digging found this Gerard butler (droool) Beowulf telling, So, here we go.

While the Wiki calls this "loosely based" on Beowulf, it sports a name claiming it IS the Beowulf tale, at least, the first two-thirds of it. They do not go on to the dragon tale. The movie starts with a prologue: A hatred Born, where in 500 AD the Danes (lead by who turns out to be Hrothgar) hunt down and kill a giant of a man (a troll): Grendel's father. The child Grendel takes up a sword and hacks his father's head off to take it with him. This, is a revenge tale.
Whence Grendel is Dead, they go on to the "Hag", Grendel's Mother, a relatively short battle in the scheme of things. Her finds her, tussels and cuts her head off. She's built rather as the trolls are (Grendel and his father), so may really be just a female troll.. but living in a cave? Eh, with a 2500 year old story, one theory is as good as the next (unless you read Norse.)

If you can understand the language, the quips are quite hilarious.

"Christ never sleeps.." "Oh that's all we need, a god gone mad from lack of sleep!"

"Geats don't wield words where swords speak truer."

As a note, the man who plays Hrothgar, King of the Danes, (Stellan Skarsgård) also plays Bootstrap Bill Turner in Pirates of the Caribbean 2/3.

The farking Christian Priest looks like he's dying of a bleeding heart attack lol.

Of their clothing, they do look more as I would have expected for period clothing. Wide turnpin brooches, heavy bordered cloaks for warmth in the cold lands, furs, brass, still pretty open dresses for the "widows", showing a lil sternum and cleavage.

Armor is chain mail, boiled and studded leathers, many tiered spaulders, some leather scale mail. The obligatory awesome looking Norse battle helm (did I ever show you the neat Leather one sold by Ren Rose of Phx?) Here or Here


I did like the spin on Grendel's son. :)
And the TaleTeller's insertion of the Cain (which is in the original telling.)

All in all, I liked it. Dunno how often again I'd watch it, but I think they did a good job with it.