I think it is funny how specific types of movies always seem to arrive in waves. In the past this happened with Pixar/Dreamworks movies (Bugs/Antz, Finding Nemo/Shark Tale), but it also happens in genres. One of them is the fairytale one which I guess started with Alice in Wonderland. Other fairytale movies followed (Snow White and the Hunstman, Mirror, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters to name just a few). It seems like everyone looks what might sell and try to duplicate it, unfortunately with mixed results. Jack the Giant Slayer has been in development since 2005 and is a new interpretation of Jack and the beanstalk story.
The movie is about Jack (Nicholas Hoult) who happens to come in possesion of some magic beans, which will grow extremely big once they are touched by water. They grow so high that when you climb it you end up in the world of giants. So no change there compared to the fairytale. What has been added here was that the giants once came down to earth and had a battle and were finally sent back to their world by a magic crown. The one who has it can control them. It won’t surprise you that there is someone, in this case Sir Roderick (Stanley Tucci, who seems to be having fun with his role) plans to use the beans and the crown to take control over the giants to become king of the world. Of course such a movie also needs a love story and the love interest in this case is Isabelle, played by Eleanor Tomlinson.
Having watched the movie I was really wondering which audience the makers had in mind. Since it is a fairytale you would think it would mainly be for children, but if you watch it there are a couple of horrible deaths. They might not be shown on screen, but there isn’t much left to the imagination. There are people trampled and eaten by the giants. At the same time the movie doesn’t manage to be very interesting for adults as most of the story is predictable and there aren’t any characters I really cared for much. So how about the CGI giants? It is made clear they want revenge and are angry, but there isn’t much else to them. At almost two hours the movie felt way too long and by that time (knowing the outcome anyway) I was happy it was over.
Yeah I didn’t enjoy this either. Too much muddy CGI and not enough interesting characters. Great review!
Characters could have been so much better…
i actually enjoyed this one (in comparison to Oz which came out around the same time in my country)
I think it has the element of a good fairy tale movie, i feel the excitement of the story 🙂 the CGI is meh though, it looks like it belongs to the 2000s
I liked Oz quite a lot more but everyone has their own preferences. Happy to hear you got more out of it than I did.
I haven’t been able to get excited about fairy tale movies. I wasn’t even all that interested in fairy tales when I was a kid. Oh well.
🙂 So no need than to go check this out.
With all these “fairy tale” movies, I wish one of them would have been great. At least we have the comfort of knowing they won’t make a sequel for this one!
I personally really liked Mirror Mirror, but I know I am in the minority!
There was a time long ago when I was looking forward to this. And then I saw the reviews…
And then you didn’t check it out anymore?
I didn’t like this, but I caught it on the plane…makes a good in flight watch though. At least you’re not missing anything when there are announcements and they stop the flick for a while or something.
It’s an alright movie to kill time!
I quite liked this one. Nothing special but I found it pretty entertaining. Perfect for a Sunday afternoon.
It is not a movie I’d want to watch again because of the weird atmosphere and not a clearly targeted audience.
I liked this one. Not great but didn’t feel like a total waste of time either.
Happy to hear you got more out of it than I did Shawna 🙂
Never a good thing when somebody says “happy it was all over”. I’ve got this one in the queue and can’t wait to see it!
No it isn’t. I really hope you get more enjoyment out of it Rodney…
I really liked this one. Everyone seemed to be having a lot of fun and that was quite infectious. It’s not a classic but I thoroughly enjoyed it, much preferred it to Oz which seemed to take itself very seriously.
I can imagine some people can get more out of it than I did. I actually preferred Oz to this 😉
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