Beowulf (1999)

The last time we went over an adaptation of Beowulf, it was John Gardner’s Grendel, a very intentional reversal of the poem that made the monster the protagonist. I think it’s about time we studied a more straightforward re-interpretation, and so I went for the most obvious one: the 1999 techno-medieval movie version starring Christopher Lambert. What, were you expecting something different?

Shot in the backwoods of Transylvania, this Beowulf looks akin to a Renaissance Fair that was sub-themed around the late nineties, a world of castles and battle axes that also includes smokestacks, winding gears and machinery, and some stylish jackets and tops to go along with the royal robes and peasant rags. From the raging techno/industrial/metal score—including songs from Fear Factory, Anthrax, KMFDM, and many others—that ramps up to numerous fight scenes full of clashing steel and ninja flips (would you believe that Mortal Kombat producer Lawrence Kasanoff was involved?), you really get the sense that this is a bare knuckle attempt to make that musty old poem into a hardcore actioner for the fifteen-year-old boy audience, like a even less mannered and subtle version of Brotherhood of the Wolf. I feel that a movie that opens with a unique, silhouette-based logo is very loudly announcing its own brazen approach to the material, and does it ever live up, or down, to those early promises.