Here’s another film that I meant to go and watch at the cinema – Beowulf. Again, this is my sort of thing – monsters getting hacked to pieces, (oops! There goes my food rations for another month!) dragons, swords, magic … all the sort of stuff that good fantasy stories are made of.
First a warning: this is a 12 certificate for good reason. There is bad language, some nudity and sexual innuendo … and lots of blood and gore, people being ripped in half – that sort of thing. It is definitely not suitable for younger viewers. However, the entire film is CGI, which makes for a strange watching experience, as it gives the horror of some of the scenes a surreal quality that makes it almost easy viewing … almost. The whole CGI thing has moved on so far since the first effort at Lord of the Rings (which was such a disaster at the box office) but although there were lots of ‘wow’ scenes in Beowulf, I found myself laughing at the film more than anything.
One particular scene is really funny (in my opinion) – Beowulf’s fight with Grendel in the great hall. For some strange reason Beowulf feels it only right that as Grendel has no clothes or weapons, he should meet the beast on equal terms, so he strips naked for the fight. (Bloomin’ idiot if you ask me!) What follows then is an hilarious fight scene that a fellow author dubbed ‘dodge the danglies’ in her blog a couple of years ago. Throughout the fight, through clever camera angles, well placed pillars and shadows, Beowulf conducts the most amazing acrobatic fight without ever once exposing his privates to the audience. It reminded me of the famous Morecombe and Wise breakfast sketch and left me in stitches of laughter. The film is worth watching for that scene alone!
All this aside, the story of Beowulf will always hold a special place in my mind, as it was the cover of a children’s version of the famous Danish legend that first inspired me to want to learn to read. I can still picture that cover in my mind now … and I could not have been more than six when I saw the book.
19/06/2009 at 12:50 pm Permalink
I was lucky enough to catch Beowulf in IMAX 3D – it was mental! The bit I remember is when Grendel messily disassembles one of the blokes in the hall: gore squirted out of the screen with such realism I almost reached for a hanky to wipe my eyes. ;p
Neil Gaiman did a good job on the adaptation, too. In the original poem the connection between (being careful for spoilers here!) the second fight and the dragon attack is a blank – a mystery that academics have argued over for nearly a century. What’s in the film is a brave and interesting spin on it.
And, yeah, all this plus ‘dodge the danglies’. HEE HEE HEE!