Beowulf Portrayed in

Films

Tim Short

Beowulf (1999)

• Directed by Graham Baker

• Starred Christopher Lambert as Beowulf and Rhona Mitra as Kyra.

Setting

• The film’s setting is a post-apocalyptic era based in the Anglo-Saxon period.

• The medieval castle in which the creature Grendel attacks is called the Outpost.

• No one is allowed to leave the Outpost due to its quarantine because of shapeless evil appearing to murder people.

Plot

• Beowulf, an unknown mercenary, is hired by Hrothgar, leader of the Outpost, to fight Grendel. He meets Kyra, the daughter of Hrothgar and they fall in love gradually.

• Little do the people of the castle know that Grendel is actually an abomination of an affair between Hrothgar and Grendel’s Mother.

• Grendel and Beowulf fight twice, the second time Beowulf cutting off his arm. Grendel returns with his mother and they both kill everyone of the Outpost except Beowulf and Kyra. Beowulf slays them both and he and Kyra escape the collapsing castle.

Beowulf (2007)

• Directed by Robert Zemeckus

• Starred Ray Winstone as Beowulf and Anthony Hopkins as Hrothgar

Setting

The film is set in A.D. 507 with the coming of Christianity. The battles take place in the kingdom of Herot in Denmark.

Plot

• Beowulf, the last hero of the age, is called upon by Hrothgar to slay a monstrous creature known to Herot as Grendel.

• After fighting Beowulf, Grendel retreats to his mother. He dies in front of her and she angrily goes to Herot and kills most, if not all, of Beowulf’s men.

• Beowulf is then called upon to face Grendel’s mother. As he enters her lair, she tempts him into an affair and he complies willingly.

• Years later, Herot is again attacked by a dragon which turns out to be the son of Beowulf and Grendel’s mother. Beowulf must once again be a hero to his people and slay his own son.

Works Cited

• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120604/

• http://66.29.194.131/AllStars/Beowulf_(1999_film)

• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0442933/