Beowulf and Grendel

[chickenfeet]

We got quite a way into this flick before deciding it was "just plain bad" rather than "so bad it's good". It does have some very nice scenery (Iceland) but everything else is awful. Beowulf is inexplicably Scottish. Hrothgar is permanently pissed. There is a thoroughly annoying Irish monk who doesn't get done by Grendel because he's Christian. Oh the symbolism! And, to cap it all, many of the characters spend a lot of the time hitting themselves on the head with rocks. Not recommended.

Comments

[frankie-ecap.livejournal.com]

Beowulf is inexplicably Scottish

It's not inexplicable at all. Loads of made-up words in Anglo-Saxon.

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

The problem is that the Scots try to play down their Anglian ancestry and insist on either the Gaelic or the Viking strands with a heavy nod to the French.

Why couldn't they just have given them all Danish accents and be done with it?

I remember with pleasure what was done in "The 13th Warrior" where the Antonio Banderas character starts off not understanding a word people are saying (not sure, might have been Icelandic) and bit by bit fragments of English creep in and finally he understands them. That was a very good way to handle language.

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

Many thanks: I have been warned. It scarcely sounds worse than "King Arthur", .

As for the monk: clearly scholars have missed the fact that Grendel stands allegorically for the Church which wishes to mess up the lives of happy, carefree (and permanently pissed) pagans.