The life of Hrothgar, a young courageous and smart king of the Denmark, who has killed the evil troll that threatens the life of his people, has been changed completely, when many years after that accident, the son of the troll, who becomes a courageous warrior and returns to avenge the death of his father.
The thrilling beauty of this reading of Beowulf is that it makes [the characters] feel modern... These people live in the real world, not in a fable and not in a history book.
[You can] feel the filmmakers yearning to have Beowulf and Grendel go all Rambo on each other. Instead, they keep pulling back for more Old English angst, as if they're torn between commerce and winning the approval of their high school English teacher.
Andrew Rai Berzins' script spruces up long stretches of Old English with unexpected bursts of cussing and gleeful vulgarity that feel as misguided as everything else in the film.
