FILM: Vikings + 3D IMAX - $9.50 = Beowulf

I distinctly remember watching Jaws 3 in 3-D two decades ago. I was pumped and ready for a Great White to narrowly miss chomping my face off. Twelve minutes into it, I wanted to throw up, mainly from the terrible 3-D technology, partly because that movie is terrible. Nonetheless, it was the last 3-D movie I've seen, until I cozied up to a little Middle Englishman named Beowulf.

In a word, wow*. I have to give it an asterix, because I think if I saw this in a regular theater (plebs) if wouldn't have been as enjoyable, maybe even mediocre. But you add the revolutionary 3-D image processing that they are capable of doing now, and you get "wow." In my job, I work with an okay amount of digital effects and CG models, blah, blah. This movie left my mouth agape and my buttocks in the seat well into the credits. I was trying to replay moments in my head that were simply unbelievable.

Even things like the camera's position within the digital realm were borderline breakthrough, not your typical Shrek and Pixar placement. It literally puts you in the action without being shoved into action where you can't tell if you're looking at a crotch or a bow and arrow. The animators also totally nailed the particle effects for liquid, snow, etc. There are admittedly some character models that looked weaker than others, I blame Finland.

I digress, because I don't want to take too much away from this experience. And that's really the best word to descrbe it - not a movie, but an experience. That is the beauty of 3-D, putting you somewhat into the action as though it were a live-action diorama, or a theatre spectacle.

I did have a couple of lingering questions:
1.) Should I know who Ray Winstone is? Whoever he is, he must work-out.
2.) Even as a dragon-type succubus, Angelina Jolie still does nothing for me.
3.) Was this the same Beowulf that I could barely read back in 9th grade?

It is the last question that has stuck with me. I wondered if kids are better off being able to see a whiz-bang animated movie of Beowulf, or if they are more enriched by going through the process of reading a book written in Middle English? And would the creation of this movie strike Beowulf from the summer reading list at Piedmont High School, only to be replaced by HP's Chamber of Secrets? I love tech, but there's something to be said to keep a book's interpretation to your own imagination - not a huge, big, beautiful 3-D experience (which I still loved).