The Great White Norse

Beowulf [PG-13]
Grade: B+
Perhaps if you knew Beowulf could be this cool, you wouldn’t have hated reading it so much in seventh grade. Robert Zemeckis turns the middle school standby into a computer animated cornucopia, never lacking for blood or excitement. Like 300 before it, live actors and thousands of megabytes merge into a visually expressive world. Ray Winstone plays the muscularly mythic Norse epic hero, riding the waves to Denmark to slay the monster Grendel, who has one Eliudnir of a demon mother (Angelina Jolie). Although a little short on memorable story (Viking mythology tends to be more spear-tipped than poetic), the overwhelming visual experience (particularly in 3-D IMAX) is enough to make you want to run out and raid a Celtic village.