13th Warrior

The 13th Warrior makes a decent film version of the main events in Beowulf.  If you are looking, you can find most of the things that are important in the story.  But unlike the story, this Beowulf never reaches old age.  I enjoyed seeing a visual representation of Beowulf and he did look much like I imagined.  One of the main differences I noticed was that this version of Beowulf was neither Batman nor Superman.  This Beowulf was merely a man.  A great warrior of a man, but a man nonetheless.  His warrior exploits met my expectations until his confrontation where he was poisoned.  It was hard to see the great Beowulf killed by a young woman.  I realize that he killed her, but it seemed to me that a warrior of Beowulf's stature should have never allowed her to get close enough to poison him.  Unlike the story version, I don't think this Beowulf entered into the encounter expecting to lose his life.  But, even though his demise was already assured, it did lead to his great victory in the final battle.  When I reflect on the movie, the picture in my mind that I am most likely to remember is Beowulf sitting on his throne dead.

I read up some on the movie and it appears that there is an even better version of the story on some reels in Hollywood somewhere.  The director John McTiernan (also directed Predator and Die Hard) turned in a cut that was about two hours and fifteen minutes long.  It didn't test well, so they fired him and brought in Michael Crichton to do some reshoots and cut down the length of the film.  Most people who have seen both cuts seem to enjoy the original cut more and say that it is more faithful to the Beowulf story. 

One aspect of the movie I particularly enjoyed was the fleshing out of the other warriors that traveled with Beowulf.  It was nice to see their personalities and see how fiercely loyal they were to their leader.  These were clearly examples of his followers from the stories where he fought Grendel and Grendel's mother.  These hardened warriors would have followed him to Hell if he would have asked.  I found it interesting that Antonio Banderas's character had that same type of loyalty.  He was not one of Beowulf's warriors and he had to have known that there was a good chance he wouldn't be coming back from the invasion of the enemy's lair.  I thought that having the teller of the story participate in the adventure was a nice change from the original Beowulf story we read.  I like seeing the story from a particular point of view instead of just from some narrator who is all knowing.  All in all, it wasn't a bad adaptation, but I do wish I could see the original cut some day.