Beowulf, Retail & Rental (Warner Home Video)

Robert Zemeckis's thrilling fantasy adventure thrusts a battle axe into the notion that cartoons have to be aimed at children.

As in the old English epic poem, it's the tale of a mighty warrior (voiced by Ray Winstone) who has to rescue a Danish kingdom from a hideous monster named Grendel (Crispin Glover) and its very un-hideous mother (Angelina Jolie). It's dark, frightening, earthy and clever, thanks to a screenplay by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary, while the motion-capture animation is used to conjure up battle scenes and monsters to rival anything in 'Lord of the Rings'.