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Tuesday, 15 August 2006 01:02 |
Gerard Butler, who seems to have a particular affinity for larger-than-life roles, commandingly plays Beowulf, the Norse hero recruited by his friend King Hrothgar (Stellan Skarsgard) to rid his kingdom of the murderous troll Grendel (Ingvar Sigurdsson). Complicating Beowulf's mission is the intervention of a beautiful witch (Sarah Polley) who is particularly generous with her sexual favors.
Shooting on rugged Icelandic locations, cinematographer Jan Kiesser provides gorgeous widescreen vistas that give the film a visual power that goes a long way toward compensating for its narrative deficiencies.
Screenwriter Andrew Rai Berzins takes more than a few liberties with the source material, to varying effect. The film works best when it hews most closely to the story's mythical elements, with its efforts at providing psychological underpinnings for the characters' behavior often proving more laughable than enlightening.
Still, thanks to its visual imagination and the committed performances of its cast -- Skarsgard provides welcome humor as the beleaguered king and Sigurdsson is as fierce a villain as one could imagine -- this full-blooded rendition of the Norse saga should prove a handy video study guide for students for years to come.
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