Beowulf (12A)

AS Rodgers and Hammerstein might have once said, "There's nothin' like a thane."

Well, there's nothing quite like this thane, since Robert Zemeckis's Beowulf has more in common with Conan the Barbarian than the warrior hero in the epic 7th century English poem.

Legend has it that Beowulf arrived in Denmark to defeat a monster called Grendal, only to incur the wrath of his malevolent mother before going on to fight to the death with a fire-breathing dragon.

Now, imagine chubby Ray Winstone as the six-foot-six blonde Viking stripping off and flexing his six-pack before fighting naked with a slobbering beast six times his size.

Oh yeah, and he manages this feat without flashing his manhood once, as the film-makers manage to hide his modesty with all manner of phallic substitutes, including his sword.

Obviously, being a boy's film, the same scruples don't apply to depicting women - we see a 3D shot of bulging breasts bursting out of the screen and Angelina Jolie as Grendal's seductive mum appearing in all her glory.

This is all made possible with the help of what Zemeckis terms "enhanced motion picture technology" - a digitally transformed image that aspires to a comic book aesthetic.

The effect is simply stunning, especially in the 3D-Imax version, as the action appears to attack the spectators' space with all manner of blood and gore before a fantastic aerial battle.

The only problem with such virtual reality is the eyes. They're lifeless, almost spectral. John Malkovich as the cowardly Unferth doesn't have much to worry about there - he already looks like a zombie.

With a script from Neil (Mirrormask) Gaiman and Roger (Pulp Fiction) Avary, it suggests a familial link between the monsters and clan chief Hrothgar, who is voiced by Anthony Hopkins.

As the original stories were fictionalised by pre-Christian myth-makers, the variations over the years being modified by monks, Beowulf increasingly took on a redemptive moral message.

Sadly, the epic form of alliteration has been forgotten and substituted by some dire dialogue, not least when a warrior is resisted by a wench who refuses to be raped and shouts: "Bollocks! Give me a gobble then."

That said, evidence of such Viking bawdiness does exist. There's a carving of a dragon in Maeshowe burial mound in Orkney with some Viking graffiti that boasts: "Thorni bedded, Helgi carved" and another of a panting dog with "Ingigerth is the most beautiful of women."

Still, Beowulf remains a cinematic spectacular.