Adapted from the now near impenetrable 9th Century Anglo-Saxon poem, Beowulf & Grendel is set in the early 6th Century; a faraway land of bloody barbarianism and preposterous eyebrows.
Gerard Butler as the eponymous hero conducts himself with great machismo in his quest to vanquish the monstrous Grendel, and while the Icelandic backdrops shine, the film falters under the weight of flabby dialogue that mixes cod-Shakespeare with incongruous modernisms (“Don’t play the bitch with me!”). Tolkein may have taken his cue from the same source material, but this is no Rings.