ELDERLY text gets a very new update here in this impressively animated feature.

Those familiar with the scource material may raise both eyebrows at the screenplay's tying together of relationships, with the Danish king inextricably tied to Grendel, the deformed destroyer of his mighty hall.

But it's the little details that stop Beowulf from becoming the stylish epic it wants to be. The main culprit is Beowulf himself, whose cockney accent grates horribly ("Oiah weeoow keeoow your mon-stah!"). It's not Ray Winston's fault he sounds this way, but a more neutral accent would have been preferable.

But its flaws aside, Beowulf is still a great tale, told here in truly breathtaking CGI.