When I learned in high school that I'd be reading Beowulf, I was psyched, sort of. Since I was also a AD&D nerd at the time, the excitement quickly wore off when the classic tale of Beowulf landed on my desk. Compared to the slew of other fantasy properties, Beowulf was completely BORING! I quickly breezed through the required assignment and got back to battling Frost Giants and Githyankis, never to revisit Beowulf again. Flash forward to 2007 and suddenly Beowulf was everywhere, thanks to director Robert Zemeckis and writers Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary. With my days of playing AD&D now a distant memory, I decided to give Beowulf and the Zemeckis version of the famous Anglo-Saxon story one more try. If the story I was forced to read in high school was anything like the 2007 Beowulf, I would have remembered it forever - especially since I had no visual imagery of a naked Angelina Jolie in my head from the printed version.

For those of you that couldn’t have cared less about Beowulf after being forced to read the much drier literary version in school, the Robert Zemeckis translation breathes new and modern life into the classic story. After all, if you've seen the film (or even the trailer), the computer animation and motion capture magic is some of the best the technologically advanced medium has to offer. The story is a hell of a lot more bloodier than I remembered the first time. To keep my unexpected praise to a minimum, I’ll say this: It’s a wonderous computer generated world filled with drinking, eating, fighting and fornicating.

As for the Extended Director’s Cut of the film now out on DVD, fans will discover that all of the additions come mainly in the form of extended bloodletting during the amazing battle sequences. So how much additional footage is there? Well, to be frank, the details on the back of the DVD reveal that the theatrical running time is 113 minutes and the extended/unrated cut is 114 minutes. That's a whopping 1 minute of additional footage. Whether Beowulf is throwing down with sea serpents, Grendel, or a pissed off dragon, it's hard to identify the more expansive sea of red. Although there's not a lot of extra footage, the entire film looks amazing. I mean, more amazing than you'll see from most video transfers. Although the story does lag at times and is overshadowed by the hurricane of fantasy CGI, the quality of the visuals alone is reason enough to add this to your collection.

As for the extras, first I'll let you know what isn’t included and what should be on the disc. If you're looking for sop talk, there's no commentary from the big boys - Zemeckis, Gaiman, or Avary. There's absolutely nothing from Angelina Jolie either. No Angelia, what gives? With that said, there are a few solid bonuses to check out, especially "A Hero’s Journey: The Making of Beowulf," where we do hear from almost everyone involved in the production (except Jolie) as they dish about what went into it the project in your standard behind-the-scenes segment. I gotta say though, seeing the horses decked out in a ton of motion capture balls is a cool sight. Watching them crap on the floor of the studio is pretty hilarious, too.

Next fans get a couple of shorter segments on the creatures and the fantastic art work of Beowulf, which both offer geeky insight into the overall look that became the product. Once again, there's only talk of Angelina. How can you put a naked CGI Jolie in a movie and not devote an entire feature to her? Anyway... it's fairly interesting to hear producer Steve Starkey mention that they thought they almost had to design the perfect woman on the computer before Jolie signed on to the project. The time dedicated to the creature Grendel and Crispin Glover’s performance offers decent level entertainment value, which serves notice to Andy Serkis that he now has some stiff competition as the modern day motion capture creature guy.

Overall, Beowulf near flawless in terms of its video transfer from digital source to digital medium. The picture quality is absolutely stunning and the attention to detail is so precise that there aren't many films to compare it to. As far as this being the definitive Beowulf DVD, the Director’s Cut is only a mere caricature of its future self. Although the film looks amazing and the special features should tide fans over for while, we all know that we'll probably see an ultimate edition sometime in the future that will hopefully include a guide to action figures of Grendel, Beowulf, and Grendel’s mom plus maps, countless documentaries, and a commentary track from Zemeckis, Gaiman, and Avary. For now, just enjoy the visual trip.