Let's just say that it could have been worse.

Now, I'm not just ranting about Beowulf in general. I actually had a reason to shun the movie when it first came out. In fact, I was dead-set against watching it with anyone. I didn't want to hear about it, but, if I did, I turned it into a personal vendetta against the monstrosity known as the “sexy” Grendel's mother- aka Angelina Jolie.

In all my years of studying the epic, Grendel's mother never was “sexy.” She was a glob of fat. Even in the later story entitled Grendel, she was worthless in everything but revenge.

So the only thing going through my mind when I watched this movie was hate. Yes, hatred was boiling my mind. It clouded my judgment for the first, oh, fifteen minutes of the movie before I finally started to pay attention.

And then I was entranced. Throughout the movie, I was almost glued to the screen, making comments to my friends about how things were different between the movie and the epic.

The one shining moment came with my wonderful realization- Grendel was speaking Old English! Actual Old English. I was impressed. Beyond impressed. It was like sinking into a sea of wonderful happiness.

Or perhaps I'm being a little too dramatic.

At any rate, I watched the movie, liked it well enough, and when it was over I knew of only two things.

1. I would have liked it more if I wasn't an English major who has a slight obsession with Beowulf
2. I would have not appreciated it as much if I hadn't seen the movie

This success soon fell into the ears of producers and companies all over Hollywood. Between 1995 and 2000 people were queuing to see the next computer generated film by Pixar, each one becoming more detailed and realistic than the last. These included A Bugs Life (1998) and Toy Story 2 (1999). Pixar was and still is the leading film production company specializing in computer generated movies each time amazing us with their ability to create realistic fur or lifelike water.

Other companies soon joined the bandwagon (as they always do in Hollywood) Pixar's parent company Disney was the first to give CGI a go with their 2000 film Dinosaur, unfortunately it could not garner the same success as Pixar.

The second company to produce a successful CG film was DreamWorks Animations' Shrek in (2001) making more than $260 million in the USA alone. The film was so successful it has produced two successful sequels, a 4-D short and a Christmas special short with a fourth feature in the pipeline as well as a spin off.

It seemed that any company could prove to be successful in this medium.

20th century Fox (being ones never to be left out) decided to join in and produced the prehistoric film Ice Age earning more than $170 million dollars in the USA making a clear profit on its $59 million budget. It was also followed by a sequel with another announced.

Other attempts came along from DreamWorks (Shark Tale, Madagascar, Over the Hedge) and Fox (Robots) always competing alongside a Pixar (Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles)

However as more and more companies' movie into feature computer animation, the less it becomes special. These days it's hard to find a film that has no computer effects present even if they're in the credits. And so it's time for a new path to be made, for a new experiment in the art of film. Motion Capture.

Motion capture is in a nutshell CGI, but it goes a little more than just creating a character on a computer. With motion capture it's possible to create photo realistic faces on people with lifelike movement. In this case you can use the movements of professional actors and yet put them in the most outrageous of situations, making the viewer believe they are there.

The first film to use this technique was a fairly unknown under the radar film. Sinbad: Beyond the Veil of Mists with the voices of Brendan Fraser and Leonard Nimoy. However the film used the motion capture to gain lifelike movement rather than realistic features.

Robert Zemeckis is considered to be the first to use motion capture to its full potential. In 2004 he used it in The Polar Express. By using this method Tom Hanks was able to play the parts of five different characters including a train Conductor, a young boy and Santa Claus. Hanks were able to act out each part separately and then the animators and designers could adjust his image and place the characters in the same scene.

Unfortunately the film opened very poorly and was criticised for its use of motion capture, the audience feeling the characters looked “creepy” or “eerie”. The Polar Express suffered from “dead eye syndrome” where the eyes of the characters are unable to move and so they appear deadened and “soulless”. Luckily though the film picked up toward the end of the year and shocked critics by making a total worldwide gross of more than $302 million. The film was also released in IMAX 3D which proved even more successful.

Zemeckis followed The Polar Express with Beowulf based on the Old English epic poem of the same name. Released in 2007 this was once again motion captured in 3D. 3D is now more accessible to the public due to multiplex's providing the equipment.

Beowulf was again successful generating more than $180 million worldwide. They had also improved upon the technology and detail. People were now twice as realistic, with the “dead eye syndrome” removed allowing the characters to look more alive. Ray Winstone was cast in the lead role and was digitally toned to suit the character.

Zemeckis is planning on continuing to use motion capture with his next film A Christmas Carol starring Jim Carrey as Scrooge and each of the three ghosts that visit him that night.

So now that CGI is old news, will motion capture take off as successfully? Only time will tell, but if it does will there no longer be a demand for actors. With motion capture why hire five actors when you need only one?

Keep in mind this is not your parent's Beowulf. And don't be fooled by the fact that it's animated. King Hrothgar (played flawlessly by Anthony Hopkins) first appears intoxicated and wearing nothing but a bed sheet. He dedicates his new hall to “merrymaking and joy and fornication.” The women, despite the fact that they are computer generated, still are as buxom as they come, and the script is riddled with innuendos.

The story unfolds as a monster known as Grendel wreaks havoc on King Hrothgar, his beautiful young queen, Wealthow (Robin Wright Penn) and his hall of merrymakers. Hrothgar swears half the gold in his kingdom to whoever can kill the man-eating monster. Enter Beowulf, the leader of a Geat army from the south of Sweden. At times it is hard to pay attention to the movie as the war hero (effortlessly played by Ray Winstone)

parades around arrogantly glistening with computer generated sweat and rippling his graphically enhanced muscles. The fact he fights the monster in the buff does not help. “Look at that chest and those abs,” could be heard whispered from the lips of several of the women in the theater.

If Beowulf was the study highlight, his counterpart would be the demon mother of Grendel, voluptuously played by Angelina Jolie wearing nothing at all. As she rose from the murky darkness of her home in a mountainous cave, one wondered how exactly the movie received its PG-13 rating. Questions of costuming choices aside, the computer-generated Jolie plays her part as the seductive demon to perfection.

True, there were a few problems with the film. If you are a devout lover of old English poetry, this Beowulf takes liberty with its source. What Hollywood epic hasn't changed the story? Just look at last years Spartan epic 300. And while the animation is amazing there were flaws. The close up shots made you believe it was live action, but as they got farther and farther away you were reminded it was all computer-generated.

Then there was the fact that the filmmakers make it painfully obvious they are being forced to make the movie PG-13 and not R or the much talked about NC-17 that originally was going to happen. There was so much innuendo that at times you wish they would just get on with it and stop trying to cover up what they really wanted to do with the film.

All critiquing aside, Beowulf is a fantastical feast for the eyes. The score by Alan Silvestri is beautiful and reminiscent of Gregorian chants and requiems. The acting done by Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins and Angelina Jolie to bring their computer counterparts to life is noteworthy as is the epic battle sequence between Beowulf and the dragon towards the end of the movie. Zemeckis' Beowulf may never be shown for a literary class at Cambridge or Yale, but it will retell the classical poem to a whole new generation.

When the movie started, we put on our 3D glasses. It seemed all too real! Things appeared to be flying out of the screen at me! I couldn’t sit still with all of the loud screaming noise coming out of the speakers. The characters looked like wild barbarians having a party and shouting and eating and drinking. When the film showed a close up of the character faces, the characters appeared to be too close to my face. The excitement was just too much, and I couldn’t keep my 3D glasses on the whole time.

I was in a land of ancient times, and they had finally got to the part in showing Beowulf. He had to fight a big, ugly, and loud monster. His sudden shout that I wasn’t expecting scared me so bad that I jumped. My father laughed at me, but I wasn’t laughing. He usually falls to sleep on movies, but not Beowulf. My brother was just lost in the movie so calm. I don’t think he noticed me jumping. Beowulf was bouncing around naked and all over the place. I’m glad that I didn’t exist in those ancient times.

The 3D effects were sometimes disgusting. There was blood and mucous. The sharp spears and swords made me feel like I was about to get hit when there was a battle. The characters looked like real people and sometimes looked like 3D characters. The technology for this movie was something else.

When Beowulf comes out on DVD, I hope that they will include a pair of 3D glasses. All of you that have not seen the movie can then see all of the things I saw. It was an adventure.

The film has a confused feel to it, it doesn't know whether it's an X-rated late night art film or a family-friendly sword-and-sorcery epic, and ends up being an unfortunate mixture of the two. The innovative motion-capture CGI work acts as a thin veneer to cover a combination of gore (arms are ripped off, eyes are pierced, and people are literally torn limb from limb in graphic detail) and sexual metaphor (the obvious example being Grendel's Mother's seduction of Beowulf, while stroking his sword until the sword actually melts!) entirely unsuitable for a 12a rating, and gives the film an odd twist as for the first half hour I found myself thinking “gosh Antony Hopkins has put on weight” despite knowing that that isn't really Antony Hopkins. There are points when the computer images don't quite work, some of the female characters look as though they are made of plastic, while John Malkovitch's character has strangely dead eyes.

The plot, apparently adapted from scholarly debate, is just too weird for the mainstream audience it's trying to reach, while the action sequences are a hit-and-miss affair, some are effective, such as the fight between Beowulf and the sea monsters, and some are not, such as the fight with Grendel, which is perplexedly carried out while our hero is naked, for no real reason at all. As for casting, Ray Winston, although a good actor, is not really suitable for playing a Scandinavian warrior, unless Scandinavian warriors had cockney accents! Most of the other roles are interestingly and effectively cast, even Angelina Jolie, who seemed a strange choice to play the powerful, demonic Grendel's Mother but is surprisingly good, despite the gold paint.

It's a shame the film seems so uncertain of itself, because there are some sequences which are deliciously inventive and evocative. The mead hall sequences, so vividly evoked in the poem, come to life wonderfully; atmospherically suggests the sights, sounds and smells of the banquet. The dialogue between Grendel and his Mother is also beautifully rendered, spoken in some strange invented dialect and seen from the Mother's point of view, offering only glimpses of her in her true form, as she seems to be some sort of shape-shifter in this portrayal. Grendel himself is perfectly portrayed by Crispin Glover, a powerful, childlike performance coupled with a suitably gross character design, Grendel proves a very sympathetic monster.

I am unsure as to whether the attempts to reach a wider, more mainstream audience are due to the studio or the writers, but it's a decision which effectively ruined the film.

I found otherwise soon enough. This was a pleasant surprise, I assure you, because the craftsmanship of the characters and the time spent on the detail and realism was admirable. I was disappointed at first, seeing that it was computer animated, expecting another Shrek style spin-off.

However, I sat there examining each character with such great detail, only to end up arguing with myself about what the movie really was.

My favorite character was the queen to Beowulf. She was modest in her actions and beautiful with age. She was the most honest and understanding of the characters. But she also stood up for her convictions in small but dramatic ways.

About the storyline, I should have known it before I had entered. Beowulf was studied in my English class in High School. But due to an easy teacher, I was able to slide by without reading it.

Because of this, I was able to sit through the plot in suspense of what was coming next. The graphics were a bit more gory than I care for and the whole movie had an eerie darkness. And I did not care for the drastic ending. I heard many in the theatre complain of how it just dropped the audience in suspense. Overall, the movie was more a hit with my husband than it was to me.

Beowulf - I don't remember much about the story except that I read it in high school and the early English was difficult to understand, then in college Linguistics Class we actually had a record of it spoken in the old English of the time and it was still very difficult to understand. However this story didn't appear to be very similar to what I do remember. But then who really cares? Whenever you have a gorgeous hunk of a man and Angelina in a movie people will go. Who doesn't want to see her? Even being a woman you want to see her. She's a work of art. She should be playing Helen of Troy.

Anyway today I'm reading and there's all of these critical comments about the story not living up to the hype. Is that what someone is really going to see? Aren't they actually going to see a half-naked Angelina? Aren't they going to see the man she's working with? Really! There are people who are great actresses - and I'm not saying Ms. Jolie isn't one because she's done some hefty stuff - but whether she is or isn't she is a persona cum summa grata, one of those people that people just can't help but watch.

I must say I really don't care what anyone else says or thinks about the movie I will rent it when it gets to the video stores. I'm sure I'll enjoy it.

This movie was amazing for it's animation computer graphics and I now understand why computer generated images were used rather than the real actors. Some of the scenes involved stunts that would have been difficult if not impossible for a flesh and blood actor to pull off convincingly.

Unfortunately, that's just about the only thing about this film that was remotely interesting. The director took liberties with the original poem, to the extent that, the only thing that resembled the poem at all were the characters' names. In the poem, Beowulf indeed kills Grendel, and his mother, and an "un named dragon". The film has him bedding down with Grendel's mother and producing a son, who becomes the "un named dragon" in the end. It has Beowulf falling in love with Queen Wealthow. These two events did not happen in the poem....at least, not the one I read. Of course, I read it in college as part of an English Lit class almost 20 years ago, so I might not remember it correctly.

I think the only thing that might get people to go see "Beowulf" in the theaters is the chance to see a nearly naked, albeit pixelated, Angelina Jolie. Or the big names that make up the cast:

• Anthony Hopkins as King Hrothgar
• Robin Wright Penn as Queen Wealthow
• Angelina Jolie as Grendel's mother
• Crispin Glover as Grendel (George McFly in "Back to the Future")
• John Malcovich as Unferth
• Brendan Gleeson as Wiglaf (Hamish Campbell in "Braveheart", Mad Eye Moody in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire")
• Ray Winstone as Beowulf (Teague in "Cold Mountain", Bors in "King Arthur")

All the actors did a fine job with the script they had to work with, but that's really not saying much. If you're a fan of Hopkins, Jolie, or Malkovich, I'd say go see this movie. Otherwise, stay home and wait for it to come out on HBO. It's really not worth the price of a movie ticket. (Which is why I'm glad I had VIP passes and went to the matinée.)

I'd give this film a 5 just for the graphics and all star cast. When it comes to films based on classical epic poems, I'd rather they stuck to the story. This one didn't even try.