Jack and the Giants

In this retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk, the title character and a runaway princess are thrust into the sky when vines sprouting from the magic beans vault Jack's cabin into the sky. A race of giants exiled there by the power of a magic crown plots to return below and recapture the human kingdom. The King sends a rescue party of his knights and the princess's evil fiancé to rescue the princess, and the evil prince uses the magical crown in an attempt to seize the power of the giants to take over the kingdom.

It was refreshing to find a non ironic, non meta straightforward telling of this story, with some elements of charm and humor. The 3D is fairly unspectacular, although there are great sequences, such as the collapse of the vine which causes catastrophic damage below. The body count, for a family film, is quite high, surpassing some of the later Harry Potter movies. It is also notable that there are virtually no females in either the giants' or human's realm. The cast is fine, and Nicholas Hoult makes a fine Jack, and brings more life and personality to the role than he did earlier this year with "Warm Bodies."

Most elements of the film work quite well and it has the potential to work alongside dark family fare like "The Never Ending Story" or "The Dark Crystal."

Or – A new take on Jack and the beanstalk. "Jack the giant slayer" takes a classic tale and breaths new life into it. So many try and fail at this, but this flick moderately succeeds. Despite a troubled production.

Film sees Jack. A young farmers son, sell his horse for some magic beans, which end up growing into a massive beanstalk. This beanstalk leads too a legendary land in the clouds, where the promised giants off the title roam. Sounds familiar? That's because it is. But its been delved into further, with more characters, some extra imagination, and many action set pieces thrown in, to make it a damn good feature length family movie.

Its not perfect. For everyone loving the fact its action packed, there will be those who find it seriously over heavy on the cartoony CGI. There are some cheesy moments, and some bad gags. But these are not overwhelming, in a film that is over all good fun.

Unlike many of Hollywood's reimaginings of fairy tales, this film is actually decent. One can let children watch this in the same manner our grandparents were reading the original stories. It has morals, it is pretty, actors play well and, most of all, it is not condescendingly stupid. Instead, one can actually enjoy this on almost all levels.

It was funny to see actors Ewan McGregor and Ewen Bremner play in a film together again (Rents and Spud), but they had no real interaction. Nicholas Hoult was OK as the hero of the story and Stanley Tucci, as usual, a great villain. The one that was rather disappointing was the princess, clearly a role that was not really thought out much more than "cute damsel in distress, ready for the rescue". Her father wasn't much either, but at least he had lines. Also, for a movie "made in USA" a great many English actors. Even the story was set in England, as we see in the end.

Bottom line: while not the best movie ever, it was certainly an entertaining blockbuster that retained a lot of the feel and plot of the original fairy tale. It also manages to have an insane body count without actually showing any blood. The US rating system is idiotic for sure. Anyway, the movie was fun. I can recommend it for an easy watch.

This film tells the story of a farm boy who battles giants from the sky valiantly, alongside brave soldiers and the princess of the kingdom.

I put off watching "Jack the Giant Slayer" because the giants are really ugly! During the film, I kept having sweaty palms because of the scenes involving heights. Those scenes were really scary. I liked the lead character Jack, because he is approachable boy next door. It is a refreshing tale to see him rising through the ranks and valiantly serve his country. The interweaving story telling scenes in the beginning annoyed me a little, because I thought it was a bit too forced. Overall, I like "Jack the Giant Slayer", because of the poignant ending.

I wasn't blown away by this flick, but I did enjoy it. And I also enjoyed...

1. No potty humor 2. No overt sexuality 3. No inappropriate language 4. No seemingly random 3D FX 5. No politically correct messages or characters 6. No strutting egotism

In short, it's not a Follywood movie and you can actually let your kids watch it without worrying too much. There is some violence, but...

The script is well written, the acting is better than good, and it moves along at a pretty lively pace. Not a classic, but good. It might have been better a little shorter, but that can be said of most movies these days.

I was surprised to hear so many complaints.