sturla gunnarsson film version of this anglo saxon poem and legend a couple of year ago rob the story of it legendary element . since beowulf be a national myth freely blend the magical and fantastic and and historical and nothing very memorable and or even appropriate and come out gunnarsson well mean effort to make it brood and historical and and realistic except that he do capture the overwhelming gloom of much anglo saxon poetry . robert zemeckis have do a new version and vivid and full of life and gore and and occasional humor . to achieve this effect he have use motion capture technology and with improvement over the previous feature to use the effect and polar express . he also enlist some rather famous actor and and the movie be show in regular format and a 3 d projection with the old glass bit and and i max . all of which turn the tale into something fabulous and perhaps a bit kitsch and pretty entertaining and and the most ridiculous pg 13 movie ever . it extraordinarily violent while but then and so be many traditional child story and myth and national epic ( the iliad and the odyssey aren not sweet little nursery tale while but that the point represent nursery tale aren not sweet ) . in the 3 d version i saw and a in the old day of 3 d and which never do catch on and spear and drop of blood and pebble spew constantly in your face . we would be dead or maim if our mug be thrust so close to such event . but after a while you get use to it . you adjust to the motion capture imagery too . it make sense for legendary character to have an artificial gloss . the point be there no naturalistic way to render the beowulf story . this movie have do well at the u box office . some have compare it to a computer game and and it certainly comic book or graphic novel material in the zemeckis version . but the result be surprisingly effective and and despite some jarring element most people may just remember a naked angelina jolie with an odd accent and and maybe crispin glover cover in gore and spore and magnify to fifteen time a man size and a grendel and the monster . a highly computer enhance ray winstone ( provide with a super nautilus body ) play beowulf and the geat who come to slay grendel for hrothgar and leader of the dane . the story open with the great mead hall where the early scandinavian get drunk and swore oath they later be hold to . hrothgar ( anthony hopkins ) be a drunken and fat old man with a young wife wealhtheow ( robin wright penn ) while he nonetheless extraordinarily brave . when the monster grendel and a misshapen and outcast creature and come to kill many of hrothgar men in the hall and hrothgar stand up to him boldly and survive . but the next day he close the hall and go into a period of grieve . when beowulf come along offer to slay grendel and boasting of his prowess and he be challenge and primarily by unferth ( john malkovitch ) an interesting character and unappealing and cowardly and but a useful foil for beowulf whom the hero ultimately forgives and in the film version turn friendly . unferth accuse beowulf of exaggerate his prowess in a swimming contest . in the movie and beowulf be a liar several important time . this be not exactly the way the story originally go and but writer neil gaiman and roger avary have embellish the original in interesting way . the most obvious one be angelina . grendel dam ( an animal term for mother ) a the poem call her be never clearly describe certainly not a a big breast and bee sting lipped naked babe . this be certainly a lively element and but a pretty distract one . beowulf have to battle grendel and then his mother and and then and later and a great dragon . arguably the dragon be even more distracting and since it a huge and spectacular and golden creature . but this make for an appropriately grandiose climax . grendel be pretty weird look and a little too grotesque and disgust and not monstrous on a heroic scale a the epic poem implies and but naturally crispin glover do good thing with the character and make him a pitiful as well a scary figure . scholar argue endlessly about the meaning of various element in the story while a big issue be how strong the christian element in it be . a someone who study the original pretty closely at one time myself and i be impress at how well this movie bring the story to life . it doesn not seem to have appeal much to the critic . but the ancient bard who spin out the original poem be not an art house filmmaker . yes and it kitsch while yes and angelina a jarring element while and yes and the various accent be a dreadful mixture . but anything that lead people back to the old english literary tradition of all and give it popular appeal again seem pretty worthwhile to me .