Continuing in the trend of fairy tale reimagineings, director Bryan Singer has created a somewhat new take on the classic story of "Jack and the Beanstalk." Except in this tale, known as "Jack The Giant Slayer," there is a whole army of angry giants, a magical crown that controls them, and a lot more action than I remember in the original tale.
But the heart of the story is the same. At the center of it all we have a farm boy named Jack (Nicholas Hoult) who has always loved the tale of the great King Erik, who used his magical crown to stop the army of giants from destroying the kingdom of Cloister. Living with his uncle and stuck on the farm, Jack has always longed for adventure that is out of his reach. But this adventure will come sooner than he thinks when he comes into the possession of magical beans that create an enormous beanstalk, connecting our world to the realm of the giants.
Unfortunately for Jack, the fateful night that the beanstalk grows out of his house just so happened to be the night that a runaway princess Isabelle (Eleanor Taylor) seeks shelter with him. When she is taken up to the giants in Jack's house, he must venture up with the King's men who include Elmont (Ewan McGregor), the leader of the king's guard, and Isabelle's evil suitor, Lord Roderick (Stanley Tucci). But loosing his grip on the day-long climb up the beanstalk is the least of Jack's worries, because though he doesn't know it yet, it will be up to him to stop the giants from coming back to destroy the kingdom.
Now as one might expect, there needs to be some pretty great CGI nowadays in a movie about large giants and an even larger beanstalk. Luckily for "Jack The Giant Slayer," the film as a whole is visually remarkable. So many scenes still stand out to me that blew me away, particularly the sequences where the main beanstalk comes crashing down over miles and miles of land. Crushing everything beneath.
And of course the giants look incredible, especially when the whole army of them comes jumping out of a forest chasing after the humans. The attention to detail is spot-on and a good thing too, because CGI that isn't the best would drag a film of this kind down.
But the human characters deserve credit as well...for the most part. While I'm still not convinced of Nicholas Hoult's ability to be the leading actor in a film, he is aided by a great supporting cast. Ewan McGregor has the perfect balance of wittiness, silliness, and a little seriousness to create a lovable character. And Stanley Tucci makes for a entertaining villain, something that actually surprised me a little bit.
In the end, "Jack The Giant Slayer" may not live up to imagination of the recent "Alice and Wonderland" or the epic scale of "Snow White and the Huntsman" but it still manages to stand out as a sign of the continuing success of these fairy-tale reimagineings going through Hollywood...and it has some remarkable CGI. Kids will love it for the magic, adults will love it for the action and acting, try to check this one out if you get the chance. I give it three stars out of four.
"Jack The Giant Slayer" has a running time of 114 minutes and is rated PG-13 for intense scenes of fantasy action violence, some frightening images, and brief language.
