An interesting experiment - a heroic tale, in fact one of the most famous heroic tales, told in a very unheroic way. Removing poetic glamour and fantasy, the film leaves us with a bad-mannered bunch of rustic killers, the stark reality of Beowulf's time. In a way, it reminds me of Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" - it's not as openly satirical, but there are similarities in the demythologizing (or utterly story-deforming, as you could also call it) approach. This contrasts strangely with typical "heroic fantasy movie" cinematography and a sweeping orchestral soundtrack. The result is, as said above, interesting - but not exactly fascinating. Reshaped into the story of a wronged child who kills the killers of its father and is then killed by other killers (of whom one has some doubts and remorse), there is nothing amazing in it all, no supernatural feats are being done (even Grendel being just somewhat deformed, hulky, and very strong) - the latter certainly intended by the director, but I doubt that he also intended the prevalent lack of thrill. There's also a small problem with the setting. I love the Icelandic landscape, I love Iceland, but to me it seems that the coast at Dyrhólaey and Jökulsarlón are too well-known tourist sights, seen in every Iceland coffee-table book and also already used in other films... thus distracting from the story somewhat by being exactly localizable to those who aren't complete strangers to Iceland.
Review of Beowulf & Grendel
