TORONTO STAR – Geoff
Pevere
“By stripping
the ninth-century epic poem Beowulf down
to its narrative bones, and by shooting it with
an unembellished, steely realism, the Icelandic-born
Canadian director Sturla Gunnarsson has made something
decidedly unusual from this medieval tale of revenge
and reckoning…
This isn’t
the story of mythological heroes and monsters but
of men ultimately confronting their own reflection
in the monster they’ve been dispatched to terminate.
It's like a thoughtful action movie with a conscience
… a successfully strange and strangely moving adventure.”
TORONTO
SUN – Jim Slotek
‘B &
G is a movie with mad Icelandic energy, severed
body parts, lots of mead, grimy imagery and real
frost on the characters' breath (bring a sweater).’
TANDEM
NEWS.CO
“Cool
viewing for the heady crowd”
NATIONAL POST - Vanessa Farquarson
“It’s
almost like the Scream of historical action
hero cinema; a sort of anti-Braveheart, because
as it works on one level, in that it has all the
requisite material an epic period film must have
– battle scenes, obvious allusions to Christ, beheadings
etc. – it also manages to poke fun at all of this…
Gunnarsson
drenches Beowulf in booze, wenches and troll jokes,
which makes for an entirely original form of entertainment.
Perhaps it will pave the way for a new genre: the
ironic, historical/epic dramedy.”
HALIFAX
CHRONICLE HERALD – Stephen Pederson
“The real
hero of the story is Grendel, played superbly by
Ingvar E. Sigurdsson with a sense of irony and humour
overlaying a deeply scarred psyche…
Scenically
the photography is overwhelming mists and crags,
powerful natural greens and earth tones, the indefinable
mutations of volcanically filtered light and the
sea and ice-scapes all building an unforgettable
image of a crude warrior society struggling with
new ideals of heroism, and encountering compassion
for the first time, not as a separate act of kindness
toward a fallen foe, but as an ideal standard to
be absorbed…
Beowulf and
Grendel is both an original and a gutsy movie. “
NOW
MAGAZINE - Glenn Sumi
“Raise
a glass of mead and let out a big loud belch of
satisfaction. Sturla Gunnarsson 's
salty, crude version of Beowulf arrives
on screens a year before Robert Zemeckis's no doubt
more genteel version. Filmed in Iceland, the epic
story – which clocks in, thankfully, at a very un-epic
103 minutes – recounts the first half of the ninth-century
Anglo-Saxon saga about the capture and death of
the murderous titular troll…
Gunnarsson and screenwriter Andrew Rai Berzins
humanize the story and add elements of
the serial-killer structure to help build interest…
The actors
are likeable, including the no-nonsense Butler,
whose Scottish accent brings home the story's down-to-earth
nature. The great Skarsgaard, meanwhile, bloated
and pale, makes his self-destructive king into the
personification of every hangover you've ever had…
The
biggest attraction, though is, the craggy, moody
landscape, which Gunnarsson captures without a trace
of romantic idealization. It's worth seeing on a
great big screen - it'll lose a lot on DVD."
MACLEANS MAGAZINE – Glenn Sumi
“The real
star of Beowulf & Grendel is the Icelandic landscape.
Tableaus of stern beauty show a small band of warriors
venturing over barren crags and glaciers, as if
braving the edge of the known universe … a story
of primal fear and people huddled together against
the unknown.”
WINNIPEG FREE PRESS - Allison Gilmor
“There is
a mad, magnificent folly in Beowulf & Grendel.
Even as it falters in places, this ambitious, slightly
crazed project achieves a haunting sense of brutishness
and the heroism of human life as it buffets against
the forces of nature and death …
As a picture of a primal, windswept
landscape and the fated men that precariously inhabit
it, it’s a weird and sometimes wonderful thing.”
MONTREAL
GAZETTE - Katherine Monk
“Featuring new characters, updated dialogue
and a post-modern take on the nobility of the heroic
quest, Sturla Gunnarsson's movie cuts a bold swath
through he ancient text.”
FAST
FORWARD WEEKLY - Roberta McDonald
“There’s
no doubt that this film will create some controversy
with its cheeky take on the oldest of Anglo-Saxon
literature, but that’s a good thing. Every part
of this movie is entertaining and enlightening.
The acting is effortless, the scenery is stunning
and the message is universal.”
GLOBE
AND MAIL - Michael Posner
“What’s most
compelling about this cinematic version – beautifully
enhanced by Hilmar Orn Hilmarsson’s haunting score
– is that Gunnarsson has managed to preserve the
epic sweep without resorting to the now almost ritual
use of computer generated enhancements.”
VANCOUVER
SUN -- Katherine Monk
“The movie
is about finding emotional truth and measuring ones
actions in accordance to that truth, which is as
important a message today as it was more than 1200
years ago.”
VANCOUVER
PROVINCE - Glenn Schaefer
“There
will be a gory victory, a severed arm will be nailed
as a trophy to the post of the king’s hall. But
it’s no epic triumph – the movie takes the poems
heroes and villains, adding flesh, blood, beer and
other vital fluids to create a harsh world of people
who have both hero and villain in them.”
