Almost Real

It's almost real but not, especially the eyes, the eyes have no real life in them as this is just about the most difficult thing to capture successfully in 3D. The Beowulf previews look awesome, special effects galore with full motion capture throughout, (The same kind of tech used in the 2nd and 3rd Pirate movies - Davy Jones & Crew and The Polar Express - badly done.) but the audience will sense that it is not real.

Does that matter? It won't if the story rocks. If the story punts, the movie's done for no matter how great the effects may be. (i.e. Pirates III, Matrix II & III tanked critically but made money anyway while Fantasy died an unpleasant death at the box office.)

The USAToday article covers CG and its relationship to film very well with referrals to The Fantasy Within and Terminator 2 along with an aside to Sin City a personal favorite, in describing how CG and 3D imaging can be seamlessy integrated with film making in a wide variety of ways. Whether Beowulf succeeds or not is not that big a deal as the die is cast because digital processing will continue to lower costs in making film just as it has in video, sound and imaging.