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New Film: Beowulf and Grendel
In a nutshell: Beautifully shot film marred by "noble savage" syndrome, but salvaged in the end by a few surprises.

About an hour after I found myself dodging total humiliation by sheer luck and fifteen seconds, I found myself listening to women cheer at the name Gerard Butler, as announced by the MC. Apparently they think he's hot, or something. This led to much laughter during the opening credits, along with much applause (a fair bit of it sarcastic) as each name popped up on the screen - and then a sudden burst of hoots and catcalls when Sarah Polley's name popped up.

Yeah, the crowd was rowdy.

The story starts in Denmark, where a young boy and his father are chased across a plain - but the young boy who cannot be older than four has facial hair, and the father wears some rather unusual getup. The father is slain, and the boy, although confronted, is spared.

Okay, so far so normal. Then the boy goes down on the beach, tries to drag his father's body off, and failing instead picks up a sword, hacks his head off, and brings it with him. Yeah, they don't exactly beat around the bush with the crazy stuff people did back then, which makes the film all the more dissapointing when it turns into a morality tale - especially since a certain "elevated saint" behaves less than saintly in some ways. However, the film finally comes to its senses, and gets back to what made it an interesting film (crazy people doing crazy things) and ends on a good note. Everybody should suffer for their deeds, and they do.

Two characters steal this film - the Irish Roman Catholic priest, and Grendel himself. Broody McMoodypants, I mean Beowulf (played by the aformentioned Gerard Butler, so I may be biased here) spends most of the film angsting about whether or not they should be hunting Grendel, although he never actually does anything of note about it. Grendel, on the other hand, does some marvelous scenery chewing, including a game of tenpins with some very unique objects. The Irish Priest is just in for comic relief, but it is welcome relief, and needed in a film such as this.

The acting is very good, the scenery is wonderful, the props masterful, and I probably woudn't have even docked the film anything if I just wasn't so personally tired of the whole "noble savage" archetype. I gave it 4 out of 5 on the SIFF ticket, and I am actually interested in seeing it again, but this time with subtitles - my hearing was bollixed, and I couldn't make out some of the lines spoken in that thick Scandanavian accent.
When somebody asks you to trade your freedoms for security, it isn't your security they're talking about.
New Gerard Butler played the Phantom
in Phantom of the Opera...he has quite a following. I've heard about this movie and want to see it as well. Thanks for the review.
Smile,
Amy

[link|http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?Amy%20Rathman|Pics of the Family]
     Film: Beowulf and Grendel - (inthane-chan) - (1)
         Gerard Butler played the Phantom - (imqwerky)

Gollum!
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