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.”