Beowulf... no spoilers

Alas... no spoilers but those of war... okay is not like I've always wanted to say that, but I just did.

Anyhoo, I just stepped out of the theater and this is a gut reaction to a movie I've been looking forward to see ever since I was in Italy... whole royal houses in both this world and the fantastic crossed my way before I got to it ( I got to see Isabella- Elizabeth- while in Rome, and Enchanted while still jet lagged. Now after 3 weeks of antici...pation, did it make the grade for me? Hell Yeah.

This is a moment of silence dedicated to all the purists and Literature Fiends that will want my head...

OKAY, it is not the original, people. It is an adaptation by Roger Avery and Neil Gaiman. It is at heart, still the oldest poem ever written in the English Language; however, the plot holes- you know those chunks we need to fill in with our imagination, while keeping the integrity of the piece-are filled with the suppositions, assumptions and very funny "merry making"songs of one of the most prolific fantasy masters of our time... SHUT UP BITCHES DON'T COMPLAIN.

Lots will be said about the quality of the animation... also about the PG 13 that should have been an R, wheter or not there was a slippery nipple somewhere, Beowulf's quasi Austin Powers naked scene, etc. etc. etc... I feel like doing something classy so I'll just leave it to you guys to go see.

I'll give props to the ones I haven't heard even mentioned... let's start :

This guy right here, Crispin Glover. He's the King of the cult followers, absolutely gorgeous in a very weird way. It would have been easy to be lost in a world of pixels that do no favor at all, yet those eyes, they came across through scaly, ulcered skin, to tell you there is something wrong with cheering for those who kill a monster, that there might be a reason other than evil behind his action. On top of it all, to you bastards who didn't catch it: of all the frigging actors in that movie, he was the one who delivered his lines in THE ORIGINAL... alliterative verse... Anglo-Saxon that made me shiver and for once made me worship at the altar of Nicholas Haydock who taught me to appreciate it.

Next... peoples of the Internet... the best Dragon ever committed to film. This dragon was designed and written by TOP CLASS NERDS... the whole sequence is fascinating. I just watched, mouth gaping, the mechanics of flight for this magnificent creature... once I got over it, the dragon hits me over the head with the infamous STONE GRINDING, towards breathing fire. I mean they got close to it in REIGN OF FIRE "they eat ashes" they said and left it there... these guys went through the whole conversion process of how a certain type of stone, combined with a naturally produced gas could ignite and make a giant flying reptile breath fire and keep his massive weight afloat like an air balloon would... don't get me started.

Third... thank heavens for these guys

Gaiman and Avery... wizards in their own right... Thanks for not messing it up royally and bringing forth a tale about flawed humanity and dying gods, heroes with terrible secrets and monsters in both human and inhuman form.... also songs about pursuing virgins and general drunken Geat train of thought.

The bitter sweet quote sums it all up, here's Beowulf saying farewell, or perhaps welcoming a whole new age:

"The time of heroes is dead: the Christ God has killed it, leaving nothing but weeping martyrs and fear and shame."