It's time for the third installment of our side project known as Hwaet a Movie! In this episode, we give the Saga Thing treatment to the 2005 Canadian-Icelandic film Beowulf and Grendel. If you haven't seen it yet, do yourself a favor and watch it (even if our review might not cast it in the brightest light). The film stars Gerard Butler as Beowulf, Stellan Skarsgård as Hrothgar, and Sarah Polley as Selma the witch. Don't worry if one of those characters doesn't sound familiar. And while the film could be better in a number of ways, we do appreciate much of what they were attempting here.
As an added bonus, the film was shot in Iceland. That means that no matter what's happening at the front of a scene, there's always a beautiful backdrop for this interesting interpretation of the epic Old English poem about a monster-fighting Geat in Denmark.
Each Hwaet a Movie episode includes an exhaustive summary and discussion, a brief Q&A, and then our final ratings categories for the film's take on Beowulf, Grendel, and Grendel's mother. We conclude by rating the film for its faithfulness to the source material and then for its entertainment value.
This one takes a while to get through, but that's because this one offers a lot of grist for the mill.
We'll be back after Valla-Ljot's Saga with the next installment of Hwaet a Movie. And don't worry, we've only scratched the surface of Beowulf movies so far.
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