"Beowulf" is a subversive hoot. Director Robert Zemeckis and his writing collaborators have taken the dreaded cornerstone of many English literature classes and turned it into the kind of sword-and-sorcery extravaganza that once-upon-a-time filled Saturday matinees. These were the kind of toga parties that, at their best, featured the special effects of Ray Harryhausen.

No disrespect to the great Harryhausen, but computer technology has turned special effects into a whole new ball game.

As he did in "The Polar Express," Zemeckis uses actors for voices and motion and then he digitizes the outcome. The result is a movie experience that's animation by definition but also a kind of super reality.

"Beowulf" has been released in regular format and 3D. Valley View Grande 16 is showing the regular format and Carmike 10 and Salem Valley 8 are showing the 3D.

I had serious reservations about the 3D -- it has the potential of being a distracting gimmick -- but went anyway. Wow. Technology meets nostalgia.

Those old-school cardboard and cellophane glasses have been replaced with a Wayfarers style that Bob Dylan would be proud to wear. But best of all, the visuals are spectacular.

According to the introduction in Seamus Heaney's fine translation, this Old English epic was created between the seventh and 10th centuries. It's based on three conflicts involving much blood and thunder and the filmmakers throw both elements into overdrive.

They also add some connective and cohesive storytelling that pulls the three segments together and they add more than a little sexual tension and human corruption to the procedure. Despite his courage and considerable skills, Beowulf is a self-serving braggart and liar. His hubristic tragic flaw, however, doesn't deny him a final chance at redemption.

The story is set in Denmark where the mead hall of King Hrothgar is being terrorized by Grendel, a monster as pitiable as he is hideous. Anthony Hopkins plays the king, Robin Wright Penn his queen and Crispin Glover the fearsome Grendel. Played by Ray Winstone, Beowulf is a renowned warrior and glory seeker who comes to the mead hall to battle the monster. He's a pumped, vainglorious kind of guy who lives for attention. Because Grendel bears no weapons, Beowulf chooses to battle him bare naked.

The next confrontation involves Beowulf and Grendel's mother. Played by a kind of nude (this, after all, is animation) Angelina Jolie, she's a golden-skinned siren with feet that feature futuristic and organic high heels sometimes described by the kind of sobriquet that can't be printed in this newspaper.

Last comes Beowulf's confrontation with a golden, fire-breathing dragon, a final reckoning with the sins of his past. It's a spectacular action sequence. Less showy but nonetheless amazing is the 3D treatment of snowfalls and flying embers and tree branches. Here, Zemeckis and his crew evoke the kind of visual poetry found in Japanese samurai movies.

How much of this is intentionally tongue-in-cheek, how much is goofing on technology, how much is a tribute to the kind of serio-comic, male bonding of sword-clangers of yore? It's hard to tell and who cares? The result is a spellbinding, magic show with the unapologetic and intoxicating gusto of a mead binge.