The idea of seeing a seminal 9th Century Anglo-Saxon poem brought to the big screen might seem a little daunting. You might think it's required to be smart, literate, and interested in great literature in order to enter the movie theater. While it's always good to be smart, literate and interested in classic texts, these qualities are not required to enjoy Sturla Gunnarsson's Beowulf & Grendel. Not at all. You also don't need to speak Old English! There are no pesky subtitles; this film has constant action, drinking jokes, and a blood-thirsty troll. The often unnecessarily downcast Sarah Polley plays a sexy witch! Her hair is red!

Summer movies are a mixed bag. You can seek celluloid escape, invest two and a half hours in a blockbuster like Superman Returns and find yourself bored silly. Beowulf and Grendel took me by surprise. There is a dashing hero: Beowulf (Gerard Butler) has striking good looks, his long hair and heavy armor brings to mind Viggo Mortensen in The Lord of the Rings. The landscape -- the wind whipped, ocean-battered island of Iceland -- is gorgeous. The action scenes are riveting, the occasional gore effective enough that I felt the need hide my face behind my hands. Grendel (Ingvar Sigurdsson), the marauding troll who ravages a terrified population, is much more than an angry monster; he is a wronged little boy with a sad, sad story. Vengeance is rarely clean and simple; Gunnarsson's film explores the nature of loyalty and mercy--questions that never grow old.