“Beowulf” stars Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, John Malkovich, Robert Wright Penn, Brendan Gleeson, Crispin Glover, Alison Lohman, and Angelina Jolie. The film takes place in a village that is being disrupted by a beast. This is an adventure/fantasy that will be marveled only by it’s new age of animation.

“Beowulf” starts off with the village having a loud party that agitates the town beast, who has sensitive ears and goes by the name Grendal (Crispin Glover). The king (Anthony Hopkins) is tired of the destruction that Grendal has caused the town and calls upon the hero Beowulf (Ray Winstone). Beowulf then agrees to slay the beast. After his encounter with Grendal ends with Grendal missing an arm, Beowulf is unaware that the beast has an angry mother (Angelina Jolie) that he must face after slaying Grendal.

“Beowulf” puts the stunning animation that was used for “The Polar Express” to bloody good use. The problem with Beowulf is the remarkably bad dialog that produces a few unintentional (?) laughs. It was hard to tell if Robert Zemeckis was trying to make the film satirical on purpose. The only way to see this film is in theaters because the animation wouldn’t look as good on DVD. Strikingly entertaining as far as visuals go.

Another major problem with “Beowulf” is the ending, which I call a momentum stealer. It may have a connection with the story, but with such a slow paced ending to such a briskly paced film makes for a disappointing conclusion. As far as animation goes, this is the best I have seen all year. This is a huge leap from the poorly written and badly executed ”Polar Express”, but still has it’s flaws that linger.

“Beowulf” is a visually captivating movie experience. There are two things that I couldn’t help but linger on. One is the laughably bad dialog, and the other is the ending takes away from the film’s energy. I will have to say that this film has one thing worth recommending, it’s thrillingly beautiful animation, and therefore fails as a whole. 2.5/5 stars