Beowulf arrived in theaters on November 16, 2007, and it's a difficult task to get one's head around it. First of all, it's competing with a burnt-out run of epic fantasy films, inaugurated by Lord of the Rings and following through Troy, 300, and who knows how many others.
Second, it was produced via computer modeling, aided by motion capture technology, and it was obviously produced for a 3-D screen. Third, it attempts the Herculean task of nesting a nuanced emotional interchange within the space of a violent, jocular fantasy film. In the end, the movie transcends its debilitating aspirations.
As a technical note, I watched the film in 2-D, on a normal screen, which (according to reviewers like Kevin Carr of Film School Rejects) is hardly the full experience. When I went into it, I hadn't realized it had been constructed for 3-D, and I didn't connect the absurd perspective shots (the point of a spear, the fly-bys of mead hall interiors) with the film's contextual displacement. Somehow, these gimmicks worked, not because they made the experience more "three-dimensional," but because they brought more movement to the screen. In a movie committed to uniting dramatic pauses and sweeps with persistently high intensity, these unnecessary movements were an advantage, however unintentional it might have been.
The computer animation was the closest thing the film had to a failure, though any receptive audience will be able to get past it. For me, as a dabbler in post-production technology, the effect of lighting and movement on the renders was fascinating: in low-light scenes (i.e. Angelina's sex cave), the visuals were indistinguishable from photographic captures. If you're not really into animation, or find yourself nit-picking at distracting details, you'll have to acclimate yourself to the style, and learn to ignore it, within the first few minutes of the film. It shouldn't be all that hard.
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