If you have the chance to see Robert Zemeckis Beowulf in an IMAX 3D cinema, go! It will make you marvel and giggle like a child, duck away in the seat and reach for the screen.

While the use of the 3D effects starts out in a surprisingly discreet way, you'll very like find yourself smiling in amazement once Beowulf's boat lands on the coast of Geatland (modern southern Sweden). This is when you start to get a real feeling for the third dimension: There's round black gravel right in front of you, so close in fact, that you want to reach out and pick it up while Beowulf and his crew toss their ship to shore in the distance. And there'll be blood spilling at you, a lance pointing right in your face, a fantastic fly-by scene over the landscape and the fulminant end fight against a dragon. Some of these scenes are done specifically for the IMAX 3D version and can't be seen in the normal 2D version.

Just don't overthink or overanalyze the movie itself, cause it certainly doesn't reinvent the genre or storytelling, but it's perfectly good fun for 113 min. Watching the IMAX 3D version does come a little price though: Occasional fast pan shots make it impossible to see what's going on, but hyper-fast and irritating cuts, which have become so common in current action movies, are conveniently scarce.

Update: CGSociety published a three page long and picture heavy production focus with a heap of information on the effects behind the movie.