Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary's script based on the 8th century Anglo-Saxon epic "Beowulf" is being turned into a CGI film by director Robert Zemeckis, starring Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins, John Malkovich, and, through the miracle of CGI, the 50 year old Ray Winstone as the young hero Beowulf. The film has a slated US release on November 16, 2007.

The first trailer has been released in conjuction with screenings at the Comic-Con convention in San Diego. And for the first time we get a real impression of how the motion capture to CGI animation technology works. And it's come a long way from Zemeckis' previous outing in the same format, "The Polar Express" from 2004, where the characters ended up deep in the uncanny valley, looking little more than badly reanimated puppets long dead.

The effects in "Beowulf" look to be far superior. But still, there is an unmistakable feeling of video game cut scene about it all - granted, an incredible video game cut scene, but still...

If your computer has Adobe/Macromedia Flash installed, you can watch the trailer for the film in streaming Flash video format below, courtesy of YouTube, or you can go to Apple's site and watch it in the streaming QuickTime resolution of your choice. Or you can right-click and save the trailer to your harddrive in HD QuickTime format by using these direct links:

QuickTime 480p resolution trailer

QuickTime 720p resolution trailer

QuickTime 1080p resolution trailer

If you're having trouble getting the video files to play, you can open them in the excellent cross platform media player VLC, which can be downloaded for a number of operating systems here.