Part of the problem is the animation technology itself. In re-animating the actors’ performances, ‘enhanced motion capture’ (the technique Zemeckis adopted with ‘The Polar Express’) makes of them creepier spectres than the creatures by which they are often surrounded. Thus, however gloopy and cadaverous the 20ft Grendel (voiced by ‘crazy’ Crispin Glover) appears or how unexpected we find the swoops of the fire-breathing dragon (non-Equity) and how bizarre the serpents-tailed Goldfinger babe presented by his protean mother (Angelina Jolie), none of them can compete with the sheer, unsettling oddity of the humans, with their milky-blind eyes. This applies especially to our hero, Beowulf, beneath whose glistening, highly sexualised , often naked rejuvenated body and bulging, leather-bound musculature lies the just-detectable face and movements of dear old Ray Winstone. The final, kinetic aerial battle scenes are eye-poppingly spectacular – especially in the 3D IMAX-version under review – but they come way too late to save the film.

Director Robert Zemeckis not only deploys 21st century movie technology at its finest to turn the heroic poem into a vibrant, nerve-tingling piece of pop culture, but his film actually makes sense of "Beowulf." In Zemeckis' hands, it's an intriguing look at a hero as a flawed human being.

Remember in "Annie Hall" when Woody Allen advised Diane Keaton, "Just don't take any class where you have to read 'Beowulf'"? As multitudes stand in long lines to see this movie, many may indeed be reading "Beowulf," if only to relish what Zemeckis & Co. have accomplished. In any event, those lines should last through year's end.

There are two sets of heroes here. One is the writing team of author/graphic novelist Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary (the nearly forgotten other writer of "Pulp Fiction"). They have genuinely solved the structural problem of the poem, written around 700 A.D. The link between the early battles of a young hero and his fatal confrontation with the dragon as an aging king is his temptation by the monster's mother who dangles wealth, power and sexual favors before his bedazzled eyes. Makes sense -- Beowulf's sins come back to haunt him.
The other heroes are Zemeckis' "performance capture" and 3-D animation teams, who digitally enhance the bare-bones live action into a beguiling other world brimming with vitality. This new technique, which Zemeckis broke ground with in the visually impressive though dramatically weak "The Polar Express," comes to full fruition in "Beowulf," where myth becomes vigorous flesh.

"Beowulf" tells of a young warrior, Beowulf (Ray Winstone), who emerges out of a raging storm in a Viking ship to rescue a Danish kingdom ruled by old King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) and his beauteous queen Wealthow (Robin Wright Penn). The monster Grendel (Crispin Glover), angered by the noise of singing and drinking in Hrothgar's great hall, has butchered many warriors.

Grendel is a thing of horrific beauty. He looks like a mummy with a contagious disease. He's a slobbering, puss-filled, bloody, drooling, hideously deformed giant with a lop-sided face and rotting teeth that can barely chew a man's head.

Knowing no weapon will defeat this monster, Beowulf sheds his clothes and waits for the next attack. In an epic battle, Beowulf rips off Grendel's arm. The now whimpering bully limps home to his mother's lair to die.

Grendel's mother (Angelina Jolie) takes revenge by attacking the hall following a night of celebration. She strings up the corpses of all of Beowulf's men save for his trusted lieutenant, Wiglaf (Brendan Gleeson).

Presented a sword by Unferth (John Malkovich), who initially doubted Beowulf's resolve, Beowulf enters the mother's grotto with its eerie lake. But rather than battle Beowulf, the mother sets out to seduce him, as she did Hrothgar years before.

Zemeckis is not afraid to indulge in moments of camp. Jolie's golden and nude temptress with a devil's tail strides toward her adversary in high heels! Grendel's whimpering about the Big Bad Man who tore off his arm reveals a pathetic mama's boy. The hero's constant assertion "I am Beowulf!" and Wiglaf's equally frequent refrain "You are Beowulf!" cry out for a "Saturday Night Live" skit.

But here lies Zemeckis' keen pop sensibility. He means to avoid Woody Allen's "Beowulf" by tapping into both the "Lord of the Rings" crowd and "Knocked Up" enthusiasts. The gruesome violence and male and female near nudity -- about as bold as a PG-13 rating will allow -- mixed together with ribald humor make "Beowulf" a waggish bit of postmodern fun. It may raise the eyebrows of English Lit professors but will quicken the pulse of everyone else.

"Beowulf" will roll out in the largest 3-D release of any film to date, including Imax 3D. While 2-D prints will certainly play well, Zemeckis has brilliantly designed the movie for 3-D, creating a strong depth of field and action in the fore, middle and back grounds in his more complex shots. Figures do blur slightly with heavy action or quick camera pans, but audiences will experience total immersion into the world of "Beowulf" best in 3-D.

The 10th century poem emerges from its Hollywood make-over as a blaring, revisionist epic, featuring a buff (frequently nude) Viking protagonist and knowing references to bestiality, angst and oral sex.

The fact that Beowulf is actually a cartoon - albeit an extremely sophisticated one - only makes matters more interesting.

Writers Neil Gaiman and Roger (Pulp Fiction) Avary have invented a back-story that links the poem's three dramatic encounters while slyly deconstructing the notion of the strong, silent "hero". It's the icing on the cake that they ask us to lust after a muscle-man with no substance at all.

True, the post-modern mind-games don't always gel. It's 507 AD and a brave but mendacious warrior (voiced by Ray Winstone) shows up to help a Danish king (Sir Anthony Hopkins) tormented by a monster called Grendel. Beowulf talks in cockney monosyllables. For reasons best known to Hopkins, the monarch has a flutey Welsh brogue. Both men run afoul of Grendel's mother (Angelina Jolie) - a sexy sea-monster in fashionable high heels. Suffice to say, not all the laughs are intentional.

The 3D visuals are more assured - and a vast improvement on The Polar Express, Zemeckis's last experiment with "performance capture" animation.

Somewhat unwisely, I chose to sit at the front of the cinema. Ye pagan gods! Blood flows so hot and heavy we can all but feel the spray. Facial features, aging flesh, snowy wastes, pebbles, underwater caves - they all look magnificent.

The climactic battle between Beowulf and a dragon is as stirring as any teen nerd could wish for.

Anyone who thrilled to the sweaty Spartan romp 300 will be very happy with the action on offer in Beowulf. But that larger, more disparate, group who flocked to the ultimate "adult" fantasy, Lord Of The Rings, will also get their money's worth. I came, saw, had my retinas fried, and was conquered

I knew that Beowulf would be a quality bit of spectacle after seeing the 3D preview at Comic Con this summer. I was blown away by the visuals and especially by the 3D experience, but nothing I saw in that footage indicated to me that Beowulf would be anything other than a novelty thrill ride.

Imagine the level of surprise I felt when, about thirty minutes into the actual film I began to realize that Beowulf is an honest to god good movie. A really good movie, in fact. And as the movie ended I was almost dumbfounded by how excellent it often was, not just as a romp through new technology but as a real film, with solid acting, interesting characters, excellent dialouge, mature and fascinating subtexts and themes, and a great and involving story. Remember that scene in Boogie Nights with Ricky Jay and Burt Reynolds at the editing machine: 'We've made a real movie'?

Robert Zemeckis has made a real movie.

Beowulf almost chafes at the confines of PG-13, filled to the brim with sexuality and sensuality and constantly buffeted by raucous, edgy violence. Beowulf might be the most hardcore PG-13 movie ever made, and I imagine that the things it gets away with - like Grendel biting the head off of one of Beowulf's men and slowly, slowly chewing it - are because of the filmmaker's mainstream pedigree and the perceived distancing of the animation. But that doesn't make it any less hardcore, or any less thrilling, or any less fun.

The basics of the story are the same as the epic poem, the oldest work of English literature. King Hrothgar has a monster problem; whenever he and his men party in their newly opened beer hall, the grotesque and misshapen and hideous and really stomach turning Grendel shows up and wreaks havoc. I'm talking about ripping men in half and limb from limb, dousing the hall in blood and his own constantly flying mucous. Hrothgar, louche and flabby and with a terrible secret related to Grendel, puts the call out for heroes, and is answered by the Geat (what would today be a Swede), Beowulf, a boastful, swaggering, full of himself braggart and bastard.

In the old days Beowulf was as he appears to be, but screenwriting duo Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary take the opportunity to play with our modern sensibilities. Beowulf seems like he might be all hot air at first, but when the time for action comes he proves himself in spades. Buck naked and weaponless, he takes on the eleven foot tall monstrosity and rips its arm off, sending it howling back to its cave and its demonic mother, dying. And that's just where things begin.

Saying that Beowulf is an adult film isn't a code word for 'violent' or 'sexy' (but it's both things, especially - so help me God - sexy, in the scenes where Angelina Jolia, perfected by uniting her flawless physical body with the ultraflawless digital technique, plays a seductress version of Grendel's Mother). Beowulf is an adult film in that it's themes are the sort that don't usually make it into kiddie cartoons or action films; it's a movie about regret and about living with big mistakes. It's a film that finds its main character's heroism not in his perfection, as it was in the poem, but in his ability to eventually overcome his human frailty and immorality and redeem himself through real selflessness. Beowulf comes to kill Grendel not for gold or mead, but for glory. His final battle, fifty years later against a giant marauding dragon, is not announced or heralded. It's a duty he just undertakes. It's his mess, and he cleans it up.

That dragon sequence is one of the things that has long held up a decent movie version of Beowulf. In the poem Beowulf comes to Denmark to fight Grendel, then he fights Grendel's Mother. Returning home and becoming a king, Beowulf has fifty years offscreen until a totally unconnected dragon shows up and he fights that as well. Avary and Gaiman have figured out how to tie the first half of the story into the second half and have come up with a device that is not just dramatically satisfying but thematically perfect. After watching Beowulf you'll wonder how this wasn't ALWAYS the story.

Zemeckis isn't doing any press for Beowulf; word has it that he has turned his back on the media after taking a severe beating for The Polar Express. That beating was obviously justified, as the movie was a horror show. The CGI motion capture technology that he used was not close enough to the photorealism that he was looking for, and the most common complaint about the movie (besides the fact that it just really sucked) was that everyone looked dead, like the Polar Express was a freight train to Hell. That film, along with Zemeckis' painful filmography over the last two decades, where he seems to be enthralled with gee-whiz technology over anything else except for base and syrupy sentimentalism, cast a shadow over Beowulf. But as so often happens in this wacky business, everybody was wrong. Zemeckis still has something inside of him that's deeper, meaner, more real than the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company or Wilson the Volley Ball. There's still a love of character and of atmosphere that we haven't seen since 1990's Back to the Future III, and there's definitely a love of the macabre and the nasty that hasn't been around since his first Tales from the Crypt episode in 1989. It's been a long time in the wilderness, but Beowulf returns Zemeckis to the world of real filmmakers, directors with something to say and the talent to say it well and beautifully.

The talent is also there in the cast, all of whom deliver terrific performances under the weight of a million pixels. It takes a couple of minutes to adjust to the images onscreen - these avatars that are identifiably famous actors, and yet changed and retooled - but once you do the acting shines through. John Malkovich's Unferth goes from Beowulf's biggest detractor to his biggest fan (and back, eventually), and that character arc is right there in the performance. Malkovich just plays it, and you believe it. Ray Winstone may not have Beowulf's physique, but you quickly forget the computer trickery as you are sucked into the humanity of his performance as this blowhard turned morose monarch. The only performance that I wasn't fully sold on was Jolie; I bought her as so sexy as to be impossible to deny, but she's using that awful accent from Alexander again. Perhaps the best performance, amazingly, is Crispin Glover as Grendel. While most of his dialogue is almost indecipherable Olde English and incoherent screams, Glover finds the tragedy in the malformed beast and plays it right from the start. I don't want to say that you feel bad for Grendel here - he is ripping people right in half for being too loud, after all - but you do feel for him.

These performances would mean nothing if the CG technology had not taken a major leap since The Polar Express. The character's eyes remain disconcertingly... wrong, but everything else plays well. The animators have captured the actor's facial movements with more subtlety this time, although there remains a certain level of blankness. It's not that distracting, although it does occasionally draw attention to itself (especially with Robin Wright Penn. Her features have been broadened to give her a more Nordic look, but something about that broadness makes her face seem flat and unpliable). Still, the texture and reality of what you're seeing (while remaining just unreal enough to be slightly stylized) supersedes the shortcomings and makes for an incredible experience.

The action in Beowulf is breathtaking, especially the epic dragon fight which has been unseen in trailers (because the footage wasn't finished until a few weeks ago). There isn't a ton of action here, but what exists is spectacular, grand and edge of your seat stuff. Seen in 3D - really the only way this film should be experienced - the action is not just thrilling but utterly immersive. With few exceptions, Zemeckis doesn't go for 1950s style in your face 3D grandstanding; most of the 3D is about depth of field and texture and immediacy. Like the CG itself, it takes a couple of minutes to find your own personal groove with the 3D, but once you do it becomes second nature. I am still not sold on 3D as anything but a cool gimmick, but Beowulf goes a long way towards making me see the argument from the point of view of James Cameron, Peter Jackson and friends.

Beowulf is an exhilarating experience, a glorious spectacle and a film that rewards viewers who keep their brains turned on behind their 3D glasses. I don't know how this movie will play on a small screen, so you must get out and see it - preferably in 3D, preferably in IMAX at that - in theaters. I don't know if this film is a turning point in cinema or a really cool novelty, but either way it's something that must be seen, and is something that all but the most jaded will embrace and enjoy.

“Forrest Gump” director Robert Zemeckis takes us to the world of sixth-century Danish mead halls and iron-clad warriors via motion capture animation, the technique he used in “The Polar Express” that digitally paints over film. The effect is strange: the fantasy factor is less than it is in pure animation, while the human factor is less than it is in live action. Actors’ eyes turn into glassy beads and their skin becomes soft plastic; if the Pillsbury Dough Boy showed up on screen, he’d fit right in. Someone would give him a shield and a mace, tell him to lose a few pounds and send him into the action.

The aging king Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) leads a noisy life of wenching, quaffing and feasting, generally carrying on as if he’s The King of Queens. ”This should be a place of merriment, joy and fornication!” he commands, throwing gold coins everywhere. If you see the film in 3-D, as you should, you won’t be wondering why things (wenchly bosoms, pointy arrows, groin-threatening obstacles) are always lunging into the camera, but in 2-D much of this is wasted.

Life in the mead hall is disturbed by the invasion of a startlingly invincible 30-foot monster that had me thinking of Randy Moss. Grendel (Crispin Glover) is a slimy brute from the swamp eternal who rips Hrothgar’s warriors apart like mozzarella sticks. For some reason his destruction is glimpsed in flashes suggesting a strobe light. I know this is supposed to be ancient history and all, but do we really have to go all the way back to the disco era? Hrothgar’s advisers wonder if praying to the newest god on the block, Christ Jesus, will help, but Hrothgar says, “The gods will do nothing for us we can’t do for ourselves. What we need is a hero!” So why mention Jesus?

Up pops Beowulf (Ray Winstone? Really, Ray Winstone?) from across the sea primeval. With long, straight blond hair and a headband, he seems like Bjornborgowulf, but this is one Scandinavian who isn’t content to have a killer forehand. “I’m Beowulf,” he declares. “I’m here to kill your monster.” And quaff your drink and swive your wenches, please. The queen (Robin Wright Penn) frostily notifies Beowulf that “There have been many brave men who have come to taste my lord’s mead,” at which point the newcomer must be wondering if he has stumbled into Ye Olde Gay Scene.

Undeterred, Beowulf promptly strips naked in front of the queen, promising her that after he slays Grendel he’ll be happy to do some naked co-ed jousting with her, and then things get really strange. Grendel attacks again while Beowulf is nude, and while motion-capture Ray Winstone certainly has the carved physique nature denied the pillowy Ray Winstone we know from “The Departed” and “Sexy Beast,” you’d think he’d want to throw on some chain mail or at least pick up a codpiece before engaging in battle fierce with the slime-dripping beast. Instead, Beowulf, uh, rides the creature around the room. I mean, he mounts the monster bareback and bends it to his will. I mean, he squeezes the vicious demon between his rippling thighs and thrusts away with his fist.

Never mind. When it’s over, and everyone has earned a rest and a cigarette, it turns out there’s much more to get excited about: Angelina Jolie. She plays Grendel’s mother, a golden goddess who rises out of the water like Capt. Willard in “Apocalypse Now” insisting that Beowulf join forces with her. Meanwhile, back home, Hrothgar is in a state of agitation. He has been keeping some devastating secrets, but what are they? The man is as tough to pin down as Hroethlisberger.

Corny and crude the tale may be, with its jokes about Beowulf’s strong legs (all three of them), but with its lyres and pyres and archers and armor, it has plenty to keep you engaged until the smashing climactic scene, which involves a fire-breathing dragon, a clatter of arrows and lots of sighing maidens and crumbling castles and plunging swords. By this time, even I had accepted the oddity of Zemeckis’s animation technique and was content to revel in the clanking and burning and flying. Spectacle is the reason ”Beowulf” is much more than a token effort, though dialogue and character are why it is less than a Tolkein effort.

No, it’s really true. Robert Zemeckis has done the impossible. He’s not only put some of an unknown author’s 3200 lines of alliterative verse (OK maybe it’s not that alliterative any more) on the screen, but he’s done it in 3-D, with a few of the poem’s characters saved and others left on the cutting-room floor—Beowulf, Hrothgar, Wealhtheow, Unferth, Hygelac, Hygd, Hrothmund, Onela Wulfgar, and of course Grendel and the creature’s lovely mum. Since the anonymous poet wants us to understand that England does not have any vicious or seductive (no-sex-we’re-British) mums, he (she?) situated the action in Denmark just as Shakespeare did with his greatest tragedy.

Whatever you think when you leave the IMAX or any other theater, you’re going to believe that your experience was better than that which you’d have had reading this:

oretmecgas æfter æþelum frægn:
"Hwanon ferigeað ge fætte scyldas,
græge syrcan ond grimhelmas,
heresceafta heap? Ic eom Hroðgares
ar ond ombiht. Ne seah ic elþeodige
þus manige men modiglicran,
Wen ic þæt ge for wlenco, nalles for wræcsiðum,
ac for higeþrymmum Hroðgar sohton."

If Mel Gibson had made "Beowulf," the characters would be speaking like that–with no subtitles for an English-language audience. All of which makes one think of the self-defeating way that Phil Connors replied to Rita in Harold Ramis’s 1993 movie “Groundhog Day.” When Rita said that she majored in French Lit., Phil responded, “What a waste of time.” Imagine what Phil would say if you told him you majored in early medieval English epic poetry! Would it really be a waste, though, to be inspired by the heroic Beowulf, the sixth-century hero whose story inspired readers with the qualities of personal morality, the need to protect kin, and to defend the integrity of your country—against any and all dragons, succumbing only to the horror of being seduced by Angelina Jolie?

The story, or the small part that survives from the text to the screen, goes like this. Beowulf learns that there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark, something whose appetite is not sated by prune pastries. This something’s mother is no restraining influence on her son, a guy whose face only a mother could love. She’s one to say, “If you don’t act bad, I’ll report you to your father tonight,” except that we don’t know who’s the father. When this guy with a face that could stop a clock attacks the castle of King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins)—may I digress for a moment? If I ever get a Great Dane, I want to name him Hrothgar—there’s heck to pay. Only one man can save the kingdom from genocide: he’s Beowulf, summoned from across the seas, a six-foot-six handsome dude (Ray Winstone) who is boastful, digs the king’s young, sad wife Wealthow (Robin Wright Penn), and wants no gold for killing the dragon only glory (read: he wants Wealthow). He’s a tragic hero, that is a character who suffers from the ancient Greek flaw of hubris, or overweaning pride—he’s a liar and a home-wrecker besides, as his new wife, the queen, will learn even before she develops her first gray hair.

To make a long story short and coin a cliché, Beowulf fights the dragon in the nude, and later takes on the dragon’s mother (Angelina), who is also in the nude—while the movie features full frontal nudity of both characters in the nude with a few sexual innuendos, making it perhaps the only picture with all those groovy features that still gets a PG-13 rating. Too bad it’s animated. As for why college students find the poem a frightful bore even though Angelina Jolie and handsome Ray Winstone are characters therein, maybe university students don’t speak English that well these days or maybe it all has to do with the fact that while people related the tale of Beowulf orally and salaciously for centuries before it was written down in the eighth century (or maybe the twelfth or possibly the tenth), the only people who could write in those days were the monks, and they were somewhat uptight about what they put on papyrus leaves.

But the monks were probably not averse to writing about spears and swords, so Robert Zemeckis, who directs this extravaganza and was responsible for the Christmas-like “Polar Express,” has his special effects people throw spears at the audience—not nice, we’re paying customers—just as Arch Obeler did in 1952 with the first commercial picture in 3-D, “Bwana Devil.” That one was a dud. This was is not.

Oh yes, the picture is shown in 2-D, 3-D and IMAX 3-D. For the last two you need special glasses which the theater will throw in free. They’re not cumbersome like the ones you got at IMAX during the past few years. They’re pretty light, in fact, which makes me hopeful that one day soon the geeks will invent a way to show movies in 3-D without requiring the audience to use any glasses at all. Even better, maybe they’ll invent a way to codify pictures into something they might call words that you can carry around in a small unit, say about 7 inches by 10. You just flip it open and read the words as though they were pictures, and you can close the thing and open it up later wherever you left off. You could share it with others at no extra cost too. The fashionable thing to say, will be, “It was better than the movie.”

No time, it might be argued, has been better than the present to attempt a movie version of the heroic epic. When there be dragons (and sea monsters, and hideous pain-wracked giants), today's advances in CGI have the edge in assisting viewers to suspend their disbelief - and Robert Zemeckis has brought all the lessons he learnt from making The Polar Express (2004) to bear on this new animated feature, available in full IMAX 3D, as well as 3D and 2D versions for regular cinemas. It is a film for our times.

No one likes it when neighbours party late into the night, but the hideous Grendel (Crispin Hellion Glover) responds more drastically than most, murdering half of the noisy revelers in the famous mead-hall of dissolute King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins). Hrothgar offers a reward of gold to any warrior who can rid his land of the monstrous troglodyte, drawing a young Viking warrior named Beowulf (Ray Winstone) across the waves, along with his trusty friend Wiglaf (Brendan Gleeson) and a small band of men. Where his predecessors had sought to line their coffers, Beowulf hungers to expand his already legendary status - and he quickly sets about facing Grendel unarmed (and unclad), sending the creature back to its maker.

Which is half the problem - for even with Grendel dead, the murders continue, and Beowulf must enter its mountain cave to find its powerful and seductive mother (Angelina Jolie). Differing versions emerge of what happens between them in the wet and the dark, but their clinch results in Beowulf's long and preternaturally successful rule on the dead Hrothgar's throne, with Hrothgar's wise queen Wealthow (Robin Wright Penn) at his side.

Decades later, Beowulf is an ageing king of international renown, his wife is older too, and he has taken himself a much younger lover (Robin Wright Penn) - but then his seemingly invincible grip on power is challenged when a golden dragon begins to ravage all the surrounding villages. Now Beowulf must confront not only his most destructive foe, but some home truths that he has long kept hidden.

The world of heroic myth in which Beowulf unfolds is neither like nor entirely unlike our own, so it seems perfectly suited for depiction through the filter of not-quite-photorealistic animation. The animated avatars of Hopkins, Malkovich (as king's advisor Unferth), Wright Penn, Gleeson and Lohman, achieved through a state-of-the-art combination of motion-capture and CGI, all look the very image of the real performers. Even Jolie, as the incarnation of pure feminine evil (with a serpentine ponytail), though far removed from any kind of reality, conforms closely to a tabloid fantasy version of herself.

Apart from Glover as Grendel, who strikes a note of truly freakish otherworldliness both because of the horrifying way he looks and because of his piercing attempt at something like Old English, the only real odd one out here is the titular hero. Why Winstone was cast as a blonde-haired Jesus-type over six-and-a-half feet in height remains a mystery that will be forever lost in the sands of time; for this Beowulf looks (and sounds) less like the stocky Cockney, and more like, well, Sean Bean. As a character, too, Beowulf stands out as the film's weakest link, a consistently flat presence in a three-dimensional landscape.

Writers Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary know it, too, reserving their tricksiest material (and freest adaptation) for attempts to squeeze complexity out of the Nordic Hercules. So obsessed is this Beowulf with his own place in future songs of glory that he is willing to lie about his own actions, and so the film repeatedly calls into question the reality of his heroic deeds - but, as in Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven (or, for that matter, Homer's Odyssey), a myth is here being deconstructed only to be reinforced and updated, and of course Beowulf's heroism, albeit a mildly mutated brand of heroism, shines golden at the end. Grendel and the fabulously realised dragon are both defeated, even if their mother - their Pandora-like, Jolie-lipped mother - lives on to ruin the heroes of subsequent generations, right down to our own. If Bush seems flawed, there is no doubt a svelte Lara Croft figure pulling his strings.

Boasting the sort of acrobatic cinematography that can only be achieved in the digital domain, Beowulf is a gruff, bawdy boys'-own adventure with a surprisingly sophisticated sting in its tail. The misogyny that underlies it is even more ancient than the myth on which it is based - but there is at the same time the subversive suggestion that all these men really have only themselves to blame for the demons that they are cursed to fight

Using the same computer wizardry as Zemeckis’ The Polar Express with some additional bells and whistles, Beowulf goes a long way to correcting the dead-eyed look that made that 2004 Yuletide fable such a faintly creepy experience. Up close Anthony Hopkins' ageing king Hrothgar, Angelina Jolie's slinky siren and John Malkovich's sceptical knight are pretty much perfect facsimiles that answer a lot of questions about whether a performance can be adequately rendered in pixelized form. When the frame shifts to long shot, though, the limitations of this hybrid halfway-house between animation and live-action soon become apparent, the assorted thanes and swains in Hopkins' court having all the definition of an extra from Shrek.

Indeed, it's hard not to be reminded of that fairy-tale franchise by Zemeckis' film, whose grandiose take on the English language's oldest epic is continually undercut by Malkovich's weird Ruritanian accent, some bizarrely anachronistic dialogue ("Bollocks, Wulfgar!") and a prurient obsession with nudity. This Beowulf is never happier than when stripping off to grapple Crispin Glover’s Gollum-like ogre or revealing a heavily scarred torso in the heat of battle. Jolie's shape-shifting villainess, meanwhile, looks like she has just walked off a Playboy centrefold, the golden goo barely covering her rude bits pushing that 12A rating to the very limit. The violence is also near the knuckle, with one limb-hacking moment that would hardly look out of place in a horror movie.

And there's a full plate of all that and much more in Beowulf's high-tech motion capture hero worship myth spinning, swordplay, ale swigging and femme fatale black magic. Especially when you consider the source of all this nonstop one-size-fits-all 3-D spectacles screen sorcery, a retro brew collectively cooked up by the awesomely weird minds of director Robert Zemeckis (Back To The Future) and screenwriters Neil Gaiman (Stardust) and Rogery Avery (Pulp Fiction).

Beowulf opens with a scene of standard Viking revelry in an ancient Danish kingdom, as masses of medieval party animals get drunk and lose their cool. Even King Hrothgar, whose been hitting those mugs of mead too heavily, drops his holy drawers and gives the audience a 3-D in-your-face eyeful of his majesty's bloated gut and backside, too much information. Enter the roaring monster Grendel (Crispin Glover), ten feet tall and dripping 3-D pus from oozing skin - seemingly right on top of the audience in row three - and looking like he stopped by to crash the bash and snack on assorted human heads.

The distraught king summons itinerant hero Beowulf (Ray Winstone) for monster removal, who eagerly accepts the assignment preferably in the nude, as he shows off what looks like pro-wrestling maneuvers on Grendel. The stunned beast calls time out for the moment, and retreats back to his cave where his nymphomaniac temptress mom (Angelina Jolie) soothes Grendel's bruised ego, fondling him a little too incestuously with one of her tentacles while conversing with him in old English without benefit of subtitles.

After much bone crunching and gut piercing among the rowdy bunch, it comes to light that Mom's nasty looking offspring are the illegitimate products of one night stands with humans succumbing to their more basic instincts. With cautionary intimations of tragedy brought upon the land by 'sins of the fathers,' there's quite a loaded subtext here touching on birth defect rejects and creature outcasts, with ensuing Oedipal revenge. At the same time, the anxiety-ridden warriors wonder if they should turn to Christianity for better luck in life, but decide that vice is more fun. Without giving too much away, a dangerously seductive Angelina gets to have the last word as she wantonly upstages all this macho merrymaking.

The motion capture 3-D digital blend of humans and animation can come off as a mixed bag. Though swords seem to fly off the screen right into your eye sockets, or Beowulf's bulging thighs look like they're about to wrap around your throat while a pig roasting on a spit floats over row ten in the theater, there's a contrasting feeling of characters whose digitalized forms are emotionally distancing. On the other hand, the actors must feel mighty pleased, in particular stocky Winstone with his body buffed and face-lifted animated Beowulf persona flexing his superhero synthetic biceps as he runs amok up on that hyperactive screen.

Tough targeted at all members of the family, the saga's setting, a fantasy-magical era replete with big heroes and equally big monsters, adventure and valor, gold and glory, sin and guilt, desire and carnality, is obviously more suitable for young audiences, but it should be embraced by adult viewers who like movies that appeal to the "childish" or "child-like" instincts in them.

One could almost hear arguments among fans as to which kind of film is more satisfying, the equally muscular but stylistically different "300," or this "Beowulf"? Opinions should differ among critics and viewers.

There have been numerous films of the legend of "Beowulf" (and "The Vikings"), but this version benefits not only from state-of-the-art visual and aural effects, but also from a superlative cast, headed by Ray Winstone as the titular hero, Anthony Hopkins as the King, Robin Wright Penn, John Malkovich, Angelina Jolie, and last but not least, Crispin Glover (who had acted in Zemeckis' "Back to the Future") as the monster.

Scribes Neil Caiman ("Sandman") and Roger Avary (who co-won with Tarantino the Screenplay Oscar for "Pulp Fiction") more or less stick to the basic Danish poem in retelling the heroic adventure of the exceptional Beowulf (Winstone), who volunteers to save the ancient Danish kingdom from annihilation by an ungodly creature. Brimming with confidence, ambition, and bravado, the handsome blond Viking, who rises to six-foot-six-inch, succeeds to the throne, after rescuing with his exceptional prowess King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins, essaying his native Welsh accent).

Hrothgar harbors a secret past that comes back to haunt him and his kingdom in the form of the monster Grendel. But until Grendel's horrifying appearance, Hrothgar leads a charmed life and enjoys it; he and his people are profligate and celebratory, partaking in sensual pursuits and pleasures. Not for long, though. The kingdom is devastated and damaged by Grendel
(Glover), a ruthless monster that tortures and devours its residents, leaving the country in a state of panic, fear and disarray.

In ridding the kingdom of the savage beast, Beowulf gains fame and fortune for himself. However, human nature being what it is, Beowulf is not above temptations of the flesh, when encountering the seductress siren and Grendel's mother, who is her son's sole confidante, guardian--and avenger.

Reportedly the oldest surviving epic poem in the English language, "Beouwlf" is a morality tale about the eternal conflict between good and evil, valor and cowardice, restraint and excess, love and carnality. For those who care, most of the binary oppositions that structural anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss and Russian structuralist Alexander Propp have detected and deconstructed in their analysis of national myths and folk tales, are manifest here.

Zemeckis and his team have made the smart decision to bring the mythic saga down to earth, make it more accessible and relevant to contemporary audiences by focusing on Beowulf's style of leadership, or more specifically, how he handles fame, riches, and power, assets that ultimately shape him in his capacities as a warrior, a leader, a husband, and a human being.

Though it's never been clearly established, many historians suggest that the poem was written between the seventh and twelfth century, even though the basic story had been told for centuries through oral history, passed from one generation onto the next. The writers claim that while keeping the poem's essence, they have added some text to the source material, enriching the characterizations, but all in line with what monks (the only people who could write back then) might have done. In their hands, "Beowulf" becomes the source and foundation of more modern mythic heroes, such as Conan the Barbarian, and American comic-strip creations, such as Superman, Batman, and the Incredible Hulk.

In using performance capture, a wide range of digital sensors are attached to the actors/characters' faces and bodies through a form-fitting Lycra suit, so that their live performances are vividly "captured" and then input into computers. The action takes place in an invisible box known as a "volume," which is divided up into quadrants that can contain as many as 40 cameras. The "volume" is performance capture-speak for soundstage; it's so-called because it allows multiple cameras to photograph the scenes in a three-dimensional space. The classic geometric formula for volume is x, y and z, representing width, height and length. Specifically, the "volume" is the area where the cameras are all aimed, within which face and body data are captured. Takes, or rather beats, from multiple capture sessions are then edited, blended, mixed and matched.

The new technology of performance capture enables two forms of casting, one for performance and one for likeness, which means that the director can separate between the character's looks in the film and the performer's portrayal of that character. The blend of these seemingly irreconcilable aspects becomes a directorial challenge—and aesthetic choice.

This gap is more evident in the case of some actors, particularly Winstone, who sounds but doesn’t look like his character (Remember "Sexy Beast?"). But in all fairness, Beowulf is so much bigger than life, that no human actor, not even Stallone or Schwarzenegger at their prime, could have fully embodied the character. Initially, Winstone taps powerfully into his primeval instincts and animalistic part, vividly conveying a monstrous man whose demonic greed for gold, ambition, power, and fame ultimately consumes him.

Similarly, in a traditional film, Grendel would be a huge puppet further magnified by computer graphics. But here, Glover ably projects the creature's pain and suffering without being limited by prosthetics or fake suits. Indeed, Glover creates a character that's helpless and tormented because of his physical deformity, bringing warmth and humanity, but also rage and pain, to his hideous creature.

In contrast to Winstone and Glover, there's more congruence between the two facets of Angelina Jolie, who looks and sounds the same. Jolie is perfectly cast as a dangerous, seductive creature that plays on the weaknesses of all men, including the King, Beowulf and Grendel. You'll get a kick out of the erotic sight of the physically alluring Jolie, emerging out of the water, clad as it were in gold, while wearing matching high-heels.

Though primarily a marvel to the eyes and ears, considering its objective limitations and constraints, "Beowulf" has a decent share of emotional and more intimate moments, providing a legitimate arena for the thespians to develop their characters through more traditional acting. Better paced than "The Polar Express," "Beowulf" contains several dramatic confrontations and "small" climaxes, some at sea, with water splashing all over you. The saga then builds up to a big, long climax in which Beowulf fights the dragon with swords that reach all the way to your theater seats.

Industry experts predict that 3-D should become the trend of the future for animation as well as live-action. At least half a dozen films, including New Line's remake of Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," are in the works.

As a mythological-historical fable, "Beowulf" lands itself to Zemeckis' wizardry and technological experimentation since we don't expect any photographic realism from that genre. Nonetheless, while capturing the actors' actual creative expressions, this new kind of entertainment still retains some cartoon-like, occasionally campy, elements.

No doubt aware that for many, the mere mention of "Beowulf" will conjure tedious memories of high school English class, fantasy novelist Neil Gaiman and co-scribe Roger Avary ("The Rules of Attraction," "Pulp Fiction") have taken some intriguing liberties with the heroic narrative, presenting it as a study in the corrupting influences of lust and power and casting the titular warrior-king's activities in a more treacherous light. The writers have also infused the saga with an aura of heightened sexuality and bawdy humor that feels decidedly, at times distractingly modern for a work set in sixth-century Denmark.

Result is, at least, a much livelier piece of storytelling than the charmless "Polar Express," in which Zemeckis first attached little white dots to his actors' faces and bodies to record their performances. While the similarly digitized figures in "Beowulf" (which was submitted to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences as an animated film) look eerily close to storefront mannequins at a Renaissance Faire, the soft-edged, photorealistic style -- suspended somewhere between live-action and animation, fairy tale and videogame -- feels somewhat more appropriate in this context, lending the story a vaguely mythic sheen.

"Beowulf" opens amid much drunken revelry in the court of elderly King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) and his much younger but long-suffering wife, Wealthow (Robin Wright Penn). But all merrymaking ceases with the arrival of Grendel (Crispin Glover), a hideous, graphically rendered demon who looks like a refugee from the "Resident Evil" franchise, and who brutally dismembers and devours Hrothgar's men but spares the weak-willed monarch himself.

Enter the dashingly goateed Beowulf (Ray Winstone) and his fellow Geatsmen, who arrive on Danish shores determined to end Grendel's reign of terror. Handsome, boastful but less than forthcoming about his weaknesses, Beowulf blithely strips down for a head-on clash with the equally naked (if much less photogenic) monster in the king's great hall. Protracted fight sequence, which ends in Beowulf's victory, is as impressive for its "Austin Powers"-style cover-up strategies as for its acrobatic choreography.

But Beowulf soon faces an even deadlier challenge from Grendel's vengeful mother, whom he sets out to destroy in her cavernous lair. Our hero turns out to be no match for a viper played by Angelina Jolie in full-on seductress mode; this reptilian goddess makes a truly show-stopping entrance, her nude, gold-smeared body stalking into the frame on stiletto heels, accompanied by the insidiously suggestive strains of Alan Silvestri's score.

In the most significant departure from the text, Beowulf makes a deal with the she-devil -- sealed with some blatantly phallic imagery -- that cements his position as Hrothgar's heir apparent. Purists and scholars won't be thrilled with this sordid twist (which handily connects the film's first half with events that play out decades later), although Beowulf arguably emerges as a more flawed and genuinely tragic hero as a result.

While the epic poem preserved the uneasy tension between the era's Christian and pagan influences, Gaiman and Avary's script jettisons the spiritual underpinnings of Beowulf's quest entirely; later, he even blames "the Christ-God" for ending a glorious era of human valor. Indeed, there is no place for God in this barbaric (if highly marketable) world of sex and swordplay, where lust is an all-consuming force and graphic disembowelment is served up for the audience's delectation.

But a deeper moral void is evident in the way Zemeckis prioritizes spectacle over human engagement, in his reliance on a medium that allows for enormous range and fluidity in its visual effects yet reduces his characters to 3-D automatons. While the technology has improved since 2004's "Polar Express" (particularly in the characters' more lifelike eyes), the actors still don't seem entirely there.

Sporting some physical enhancements -- and consequently looking more like Sean Bean in "The Lord of the Rings" than himself -- the gravel-voiced Winstone manfully conveys the character's hubris ("I am Beowulf!" is his war cry and aspiring catchphrase) and, later, his weariness and regret. But this Beowulf is more vocally than visually commanding, never fully engaging the emotions the way a righteous medieval badass should.

Other actors do make vivid impressions in smaller roles: John Malkovich is enjoyably unctuous as Beowulf's jealous court rival, Unferth; Wright Penn evinces a wounded beauty as a queen betrayed by two husbands; and Brendan Gleeson brings welcome gravitas and humor to Beowulf's faithful sidekick, Wiglaf.

Compensating somewhat for the mostly torch-lit interiors, Zemeckis and cinematographer Robert Presley (who also shot "Polar Express") orchestrate visual flourishes -- majestic crane shots of the frozen Nordic landscape, fiery-blue strobe effects for Grendel's first attack -- that are especially striking in 3-D. Doug Chiang's production design and Gabriella Pescucci's costumes are scaled appropriately to the primitivism of the setting.

Again and again, this "Beowulf" references how its hero's deeds will become the stuff of legend, forever enshrined in bards' songs, in plays and, by extension, in the movies. Too bad Zemeckis, striving for the immortality of myth, is unwilling to simply let his characters be mortal.

Beowulf (Ray Winstone), hero of the Geats, travels to Heorot after learning that the Danish king Hrothgar’s (Anthony Hopkins) royal mead hall is being terrorized by the demon Grendel (Crispin Glover). But killing the monster brings the wrath of Grendel’s mother (Angelina Jolie) down on Beowulf, who is seduced and cursed by the siren. Years later, and now a king himself, Beowulf must face the consequences of his sin and save his people from the threat of a fire-spitting dragon.

The poem is widely regarded to be divided into three parts, each culminating with a great battle of the titular hero - the first against Grendel, the second against Grendel’s mother, and the third against the dragon. Modern reception has found the plotting to be somewhat clumsy, since the third segment appears to have very little to do story-wise with the first two. The fact that screenwriters Neil Gaiman (Stardust) and Roger Avary (Pulp Fiction) found a convincing way to string these three sections together laid the foundation for the making of this film adaptation.

Gaiman and Avary not only wrote a script that modern audiences can relate to, they’ve also managed to give the plot the necessary coherent three-arc structure by weaving a thematic arc over poem’s many unanswered questions (such as: Why does Grendel refuse to attack Hrothgar? Who is Grendel’s father? Why does Beowulf bring Grendel’s head as proof of killing Grendel’s mother, and not hers?). This made for a very focused narrative for Oscar-winning director Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future, Forrest Gump) to build his film upon.

In order to realize his vision of an epic Beowulf movie, Zemeckis re-employed the special motion capture technology he first used on his animated feature The Polar Express in 2004, which allows for animation at a near photo-realistic level. Compared to The Polar Express, however, Beowulf is a definite step up. Next to general improvements in the details, the most noticeable difference are the eyes, which now look real enough and show the right amount of emotion for the viewer to believe that the characters they belong to are alive and breathing.

But Zemeckis’ singular visual style has its downside, and moreso if you’re watching it in a conventional theater (and let’s face it, only a small margin of viewers will see Beowulf in its intended 3-D IMAX incarnation). While the ruggedness and the harsh faces of the male characters are mightily impressive in detail and range of expression, the soft skin textures of the female characters are cause for a disappointing facial inexpressiveness on par with animations in films like Shrek. Only that on Shrek, in its cartoon context, this level of animation is considered good, whereas it falls completely short of Beowulf’s photo-realistic ambition.

But more significantly, Beowulf’s visual signature goes against its photography. The way both landscapes and interiors are shot and framed is beautiful and vivid, but more often than not the quality of the picture is what you’ve already come to expect from cutscenes in next generation video games. And that’s frustrating, because the cinematography is gorgeous, but the motion capture technology underneath it doesn’t keep up step. I am willing to concede, however, that seeing the film in 3-D could make a world of difference in this respect (we’ll have to wait for Elgar’s forthcoming review of that version for any conclusions).

These drawbacks obviously beg the question as to why Zemeckis insisted on motion capture in the first place, instead of doing it the traditional way, i.e. live-action footage enhanced with CG effects. The reason is that this technology gifted Zemeckis with a certain degree of creative freedom that traditional filmmaking lacks. His Beowulf is a 2 metre tall Adonis, and motion capture meant Zemeckis needn’t limit his casting to actors of that size. Ray Winstone won the role because of his voice, and the director was able to digitally capture the actor’s subtle performance and stick all of that onto a 2 metre tall digital model.

And Winstone’s interpretation of the character Beowulf is perfect. He’s a self-conscious, testosteron-laden brute who makes for a far more believable 8th century warrior than other medival or antique heroes that are so often beset with a modern set of moral values. The motion capture technology also allows for a seamless aging of the characters (the third segment of the film jumps forward in time about 50 years) which could never be achieved with make-up only (or, not to mention, by casting other, older actors).

But what really makes Beowulf worth your time are not its visuals, but Zemeckis’ directing. From the very first moment that long tracking shot takes you over the Danish countryside into the mead hall Heorot (which, by the way, served as Tolkien’s inspiration for the hill city Edoras in The Lord of the Rings), where you witness the hedonism going on at the royal court (so brilliantly embodied by an almost-nude Anthony Hopkins’ frail yet edgy portrayal of King Hrothgar), you are swept off your feet into a barbarous world of incessant drinking, cursing, explicit singing and fornication that feels absolutely tangible.

Grendel’s attack soon follows, and plunges the film into a surreal atmosphere with eerie lighting that doesn’t feel at all out of place and we meet again in Grendel’s mother’s lair. The action scenes are ruthless, and along with Grendel’s look another case in point for the motion capturing: the beast is of an immensly tall, decaying physique which in relation to the human characters comes across as more believable than if the scene had featured a CGI monster attacking live actors. Except for a short dip in the middle, the pacing of the film’s plot is brisk. And thanks to the assiduous screenplay, the film feels like one coherent story about the heroism and downfall of Beowulf.

So forget the laughable trailers and television spots casting the film in a wrong light. And never mind the non-existant marketing that’s seemingly been trying to sweep this film under the carpet (although you can’t really mind it, can you, it being non-existant and all). Beowulf is not nearly as silly as the impression that’s been evoked in the run up to its release. In fact, it is far more convincing than, say, 300, which will be the first film to beg comparisons. And even if that movie was more pleasing aesthetically, from a filmmaking perspective, Beowulf is easily the better of the two.

Which is no mean feat as the source material is challenging to say the least. The 3,000-line poem was written sometime in the sixth century and revolves about a Viking warrior who saves an ancient Danish kingdom from destruction at the hands of a terrible beast. The plot is pure Hollywood, but the convoluted and disparate nature of the original text couldn't be further from modern, three-act screenplay structure. Writers Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary have decided to play fast and loose with the story however, filling in the poem's many blanks to create a convincing and wholly satisfying adventure about the battle between good and evil and the nature of true heroism.

Their story kicks off with King Hrothgar's kingdom under attack from Grendel, a malevolent monster hell-bent on delivering death and destruction to the Danes. A feast for the eyes, it immediately becomes clear that visually, Beowulf is quite unlike any movie ever made. The filmmakers have fine-tuned the motion-capture technology so at times the humans look photo-realistic - no dead-eyed Polar Express-style kids here - rather we get lifelike characters with faces every bit as expressive as their human counterparts.

Beowulf himself is a triumph - a muscular warrior with a disdain for clothes that allows the viewer to see (almost) every line and curve of his brilliantly computer generated body. As for the vocal performance, it's initially jarring to hear Ray Winstone's cockney growl coming from the body of such a Viking Adonis, but by the end of the film his casting makes perfect sense.

As played by Angelina Jolie, Grendel's mother is also an incredibly accomplished creation. Making full use of the star's obvious talents, she pads and slinks around her underwater lair like some feline seductress from hell - It's one of the most sexually charged performances Jolie has yet committed to film.

As for Grendel himself, the filmmakers have created one of the great big-screen creatures - a superhuman giant dripping bubbling blood and festering flesh from every godless pore. Crispin Glover, who last worked with Zemeckis on Back to the Future more than 20 years ago, imbues the creature with just the right combination of anger, violence, sadness and pathos to create a truly memorable movie monster.

But forget plotting and performance - Beowulf is all about action, and in this respect the results are truly jaw-dropping. Fully utilizing the limitless computer canvas, the camera swoops and soars around the expansive CG sets, viewing proceedings from hitherto impossible angles and vantage points.

From the violently breathless opening exchanges, the film rarely slows down to catch its breath. Battle after battle ensues, the monsters becoming ever larger and more dangerous and the combat increasingly eventful and outlandish, culminating in an astonishing finale following an enormous fire-breathing dragon in flight. These spectacular set-pieces make full use of the 3D technology, and will have the audience ducking and diving for cover. With James Cameron currently working on his own 3D epic Avatar and several other filmmakers following suit, this might just be the future of theatrical releases, and if so we're all in for a treat.

On the negative side, the film does have several dramatic lulls between the action sequences and the sporadic attempts at humour are corny in the extreme. Also, so much of the film's appeal lies in the 3D-IMAX experience that one wonders how impressive the action will be when screened in normal 35mm (my guess would be pretty underwhelming).

That said; all credit to Zemeckis and his team for taking an ancient Anglo-Saxon text and giving it the most modern of spins. By combining cutting edge technology with good old-fashioned storytelling they've created a truly original feature that genuinely takes the breath away.