This movie is gonna be soooo sweeeeeet in IMAX.

Guess it must be an eyeglasses thing as I saw this in Real3D, also wear glasses, and barely noticed any 3D effects at all also. I was absolutely blown away watching The Polar Express in IMAX 3D a couple of years ago, before glasses, so I'm not sure if Real3D is just dramatically inferior or just doesn't work well for those people wearing eyeglasses.

I spent the whole movie just wishing it was 35mm as, not only was the 3D aspects virtually non-existent, but felt it degraded the typical image quality with brightness hot spots and blurring.

As for the movie, I think the 300/LotR comparisons are apt. If one enjoys those films then they likely will this also. Personally, I thought it was much ado about nothing as I didn't care about what was happening in the slightest. Not unwatchable or actively disliked but nothing I cared for either.

If I had it to do again though, I would wait to see it in IMAX 3D to see if that made any difference or just see a 35mm print instead as I wasn't impressed with Real3D at all.

It makes me wonder what's going on with your theater, because Real D looks amazing, bright, clear and full of depth to me. I've seen CHICKEN LITTLE, MONSTER HOUSE, MEET THE ROBINSONS and NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS and they were all excellent, as bright and clear as any 2-D presentation. It's the best polarized 3-D I've seen outside of the World 3-D Expos, and I've seen over 70 3-D features theatrically. Whether or not you wear prescription glasses shouldn't affect the 3-D.

If you are seeing hotspots, the theater is doing something very wrong.

Is it possible you saw one of the Dolby 3D presentations using a white instead of silver screen? I haven't seen that system yet.

In my experience IMAX is great, but only as good as the auditoriums, which vary in suitability a lot. Some are so small that if you are closer than the back row, you are too close.

My favorite Real D screen in my area is in a large auditorium, and the image looks great and I vastly prefer to see 3-D films there over the IMAX venues.

Were you sitting up front? That's the WORST place to sit in a 3-D movie as the effect is far less pronounced there. Sit dead center and towards the rear if at all possible for the best stereoscopic experience.

Bottom line though, a certain percentage of the population has issues with depth perception.

Yes, but between the two, I see more people picking Enchanted in the long run, especially next weekend. A lot of people in my area, save for geeks, only seem to know Beowulf as something they were forced to read in high school. I would love to see both fantasy movies go on to make lots of money, but I think in the end there's only room for one.

It definitely isn't the theater as it was literally a brand new state of the art theater. I was seated about 2/3 from the front in the middle.

I'm really thinking it is an eyeglasses issue (rather than anything with depth perception which would affect one when not wearing glasses also and I was stunned with The Polar Express in IMAX 3D without glasses two years back) where the 3D glasses need to be flush against ones face and the added distance of having eyeglasses and then the 3D glasses over them causes the 3D effects not to work ideally.

If that is the case, and nothing else comes to mind if others were that impressed with Beowolf in Real3D, then, personally, I think they need to figure out another 3D glasses design as I wouldn't be all that impressed for future 3D films if they all end up like this one (and I would pay to see The Polar Express in IMAX 3D again just for the effects).

A brand new theater can still screw up projection, and I can assure you the lenses of the 3-D viewers being a half inch further from your eyes will have no impact on the stereoscopic effect.

More likely you are responding to the stereo base differences; IMAX tends to place the action almost entirely in theater space while Real D projects so far take the more traditional 3-D route of observing the stereo window, where the action is mostly behind the level of the screen with occasional objects brought into theater space.
Real D projects so far have indeed been fairly conservative so as not to cause eyestrain in audiences, but the word is BEOWULF has more depth than some of the previous entries.

Whether IMAX or Digtal, see it in 3-D! I'll of course have to check out BOTH...

I'm seeing it in digital this weekend, but I'm very interested to hear a comparison, so be sure to check back here with a review. In my experience, IMAX 3D is just too, I don't know, agressively in-your-face for my taste... :)

I'm going to go see this film despite my opinions of the CG in this film. Final Fantasy came out 6 years ago and still looks way better than Beowolf does.

^Same here. I think the film looks like shit. Sorry, but it does. And i also have to agree with Roger Ebert's take on 3D. 3D doesn't do any thing for me.
However, I've read the first 40 pages of the script and I can say it looks to be a very well written film. So, i will be seeing the film this weekend and try to give the animation a chance.

Speaking of Ebert, in his review, he doesn't even critique the movie one bit, except for calling it "a one-dimensional story."

Saw this in RealD locally - I thought it looked phenomenal, the increase in depth is phenomenal. The animation is by and large the best I've seen, easily dwarfing Advent Children (The original FF:The Spirits Within failed to impress me upon initial release due to the horribly stiff animation). There are scenes from time to time that looked a little off, but by and large (the "gold" characters), it was just visually phenomenal. I found the very-aware 3d bits to be distracting (stuff being thrown at the screen), but once the movie got past all that, the use of 3D was very well done.

The story itself isn't exactly the most thrilling, but the movie plays it well. It doesn't take itself too seriously and is fairly heavy on the innuendo (and based on the story, it played it right.) It almost plays out like a singular, long sex joke, and imho, it was the best way to tell this tale. Additionally, I was surprised by how much gore was in it.

Overall, I really enjoyed it.

Well, I just came back from the movie. The 9:15 showing had about 20 people in the theater. Zero line for the midnight show. The story is paper thin. Thats not surprising since they dragged a short poem to 2 hours. Beowulf loves to scream and take off his shirt.... a lot. The 3D was pretty neat. That's all I can say about this movie. Its worth watching once in 3D. I'd wait for DVD if you plan to see it in 2D.

Thank you kindly for the info Steve. Nice to hear it definitely wasn't a glasses issue as I would have wondered about that as well as that being a curiosity for any future Real3D films. Guess it was just solely a personal underwhelming opinion of its image quality.

Saw another film at the same theater tonight and was extremely impressed with its detail, clarity, depth etc. in comparison. I would have expected that something like Beowolf would offer that same image quality with any 3D aspects being a plus but didn't feel it even compared to this film on the image quality alone. Perhaps I'll peak in on a 2D Beowolf showing the next time I go to the movies to see how that looks to me compared to the 3D version.

I saw a digital 3D presentation of the flick at a 10:45 showing. If it wasn't for the 15 people I dragged along with me, there were only about ten other people in the theater. Can we say ghost town?

I am going to be honest, I think if the film was trimmed to a running time of around 90 minutes, it would've been smooth sailing and a better experience. I would've trimmed a lot of material with Robin Wright Penn, Allison Lohman, and (sad to say it) John Malkovich. Lots of character fodder that ends up going absolutely nowhere in terms of what the story needs to accomplish.

The visuals are stunning and the 3D is short of breathtaking. I would recommend just seeing it in theaters for the 3D aspect alone as it is that good. The action is top notch and I wish there was more of it.

If I would see it again? Probably not. Especially since the 2D would take a lot away after seeing it in 3D.

I actually liked it. It was kinda epic like and the runtime didn't seem that long to me. I admit that all the Male Nudity and the "Austin Powers" fight scene was a bit much.

There's a major difference between being epic and having story lines and characters that go nowhere. I really would've loved to seen Malkovich's character more developed, because it's fucking John Malkovich. All they really had him do nothing except be a dick for a couple of minutes. Lohman's character was pure fodder, nothing else -- all of her scenes could've been trashed and it would've made no difference on the story.

I think it's good in it's current state. I think it could be better with material trimmed to make the film faster and tighter.

I wonder if the full frontal male nudity is going to be "apparent" in the unrated version of the film.

Oh, by the way, how the fuck did this film get a PG-13 anyway?

Zemeckis is friends with Spielberg... Spielberg always seems to have his way with the ratings board.

Is there any linkage to back this up, or can you elaborate in greater detail as to why eyeglasses will have no impact? Maybe it's the type of prescription? I saw it in a NYC critics screening, so the presentation would have been perfect. And I can state categorically that I had issues seeing the 3-D presentation of this film, just as I had issues seeing the 3-D presentation of "Superman Returns" on IMAX. Other people wearing glasses that I spoke to saw "Beowulf" fine, while others had minimal effects. I seemed to have a more heavily impacted experience.

Don't believe even a quarter of what you read on the internet regarding 3-D, as a lot of people simply cut and paste the same mis-information. Seemingly credible reporters continue to perpetuate, for example, myths like 3-D movies in the 1950's used red and blue glasses, WHICH IS NOT TRUE. That said, why should you listen to little old me?

I've extensively studied the stereoscopic cinema since 1976; seen over 70 3-D features theatrically; shot thousands of 3-D stills with a variety of stereo cameras, made my own 3-D movies on Super 8, VHS and Mini-DV; and have 3-D home video set ups using DVD, PCs and Head Mounted VR displays.

Since I didn't see the movies with your eyes using your prescription glasses, I can't tell you what you did or didn't experience. I'm simply saying that there is absolutely no evidence that having the lenses of 3-D glasses a quarter of an inch away from your eyes vs a half inch will make any difference.

Bottom line, people's eyes are different. Depth perception is not the same for all people, just as some people have different color vision. Some people's eyes are set closer together than others, and that can have a huge impact on their depth perception. Age is another factor. Maybe your eye glasses perscription is too strong. Who really knows?

Me, I have issues with IMAX 3D at times giving me eyestrain, while more traditional 3-D projection (polarized 3-D on film) and Real D is easier for me to take. Others prefer IMAX's totally in theater space approach.

Thanks for the info. I guess I'm just cursed to a non-3D existence, although I would like to see Beuwulf with contacts (which i don't own yet) just to see what happens.

I only have one good eye, and with that, very little depth perception. :(

When I use to watch old-skool 3D (red lense/blue lense) I was only able to see blue. Does this new technology work the same?

You do have to have two good eyes to see 3-D properly, regardless of the process. Digital 3D and IMAX 3D use the virtually the same polarized clear gray lenses which have been used for most other 3-D movies in the past, but the projection method is greatly improved.

Forget about red/blue anaglyph (most widely used for comic books, only very rarely for film, sometimes on TV) it is not suitable for movies at all.

It's all about IMAX and Digital going forward.

I saw it in IMAX 3D and thought it looked amazing. Great 3D, coolest animation I've ever seen... however I thought the movie was boring as hell. There were a lot of good scenes and some dynamite action but EVERYTHING gets dragged out far too long... I just wanted to get up and yell 'ENOUGH ALREADY' a few times, not to mention the painful 'Austin Powers'ness of the nude fight scene... they should have just gone balls out and it wouldn't have been laughable, it would have been intense (I realize the rating would have been bumped to an R, but I thought it didn't quite work for me the way it was).

Way more gore than I had anticipated and there are some gangbuster scenes...it just needed to be a lot shorter because I didn't care for half of the characters in this thing, so all the 'dramatic' scenes bring it to a screeching halt.... A letdown but worth seeing if it's in 3D near you. 3/5

Yeah, the nude scene was laughable but there were people in my theater laughing the whole way through this. Morons. I really enjoyed this flick overall. And yeah, I had seen this in 3D as well. Absolutely stunning.

Saw it. If you don't see this in digital 3D, you will miss 75% the effect of this stunning piece of visual work. Loved the fact that they decided not to pander to the audience, even if it lead to a lot of people laughing at scenes that I thought were well done. The nude stuff seemed awkward, especially with the immature audience of today right behind me. Overall a vast improvement over the kiddy-fare of Polar Express. I say see it, but only in either 3D or IMAX 3D.

Also, while well done, I don't see this movie getting good word of mouth from Joe Six pack.