I went to a Beowulf matinee this afternoon and found myself pretty entertained. The film is "sort of" animated: it captures the movements and facial features (and voices) of real actors using the technology that brought Gollum to life in Peter Jackson's The Lord Of The Rings trilogy. Because the whole frame is rendered in CGI, it has both the strengths and weaknesses of the approach. That is, at times it's clear you are watching people who aren't real because their skin seems a bit too waxy and their movements often lack grace (though there are scenes where the characters--especially Anthony Hopkins as Hrothgar--are presented with stunning photorealism; we've come a long way since Toy Story!). On the other hand, the "camera" is able to move in innovative ways and the filmmakers' visual imagination knows virtually no bounds.
My advice is to see this flick, but to catch it in 3-D, as it's pretty clear a lot of sequences, especially in action scenes, were designed to take advantage of this effect. In the conventional 2-D presentation I saw, it was obvious when the audience was meant to duck because, say, an arrow was being fired right out of the screen.
The film is a loose adaptation of the epic poem, but trusty Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary have given Bob Zemeckis a sturdy tale to spin with lots of good eye candy.
