Jack the Giant Killer

Well, this movie was nothing at all what I had expected it to be. I had expected somewhat of a new interpretation of the classic tale of Jack and the bean stalk, but alas, that was not to be.

This is a story that borrows heavily from that story yes, but it does so in a very nonchalant way. It does however, pardon my French, manage to butcher up the entire story and try to put a weird, modern twist to it. But it just failed in every aspect.

The story ends up being a very broken apart set of fragments that doesn't really add up to a greater picture or unity. You just sit there wondering how this could come to be.

Mind you, that this is a The Asylum production, so that is a clear warning sign right there. I wasn't aware of that prior to obtaining the movie, and had I known, I wouldn't have wasted time or money on it. This is by far one of the more questionable movies from The Asylum that I have seen so far.

The CGI effects in the movie were quite bad, especially the big dinosaur-like creatures. They were just laughable. I will say that the floating brick building was actually quite nicely made, so thumbs up for that at least.

As for the acting, well there was nothing exceptional or mentionable here, and not even Ben Cross could manage to lift up anything in this particular movie.

This movie was definitely not meant for me as the audience, and it was a very strained ordeal to get through it. I ended up picking up my phone and playing some game during it as well, as I sort of lost interest in the storyline, which wasn't particularly solid to begin with, but I did manage to finish the movie. However, what would appeal to anyone in this movie is hard for me to put my finger upon; perhaps if you are a die-hard fan of anyone in the movie, but other than that, I just don't see the appeal.

This movie was made with one purpose: to trick people into buying the DVD/blue-ray of "Jack the giant killer", only to be disappointed it isn't the blockbuster movie "Jack the giant slayer" they thought it was. There cannot have been any other reason or intention for making it because this movie is the very worst of utter crap. It really is just the stolen movie title filled with garbage. However, there is a story in there. It has actors, it has special effects, though extremely bad, appalling, awful. The movie has inconsistency written all over it. Nothing makes any sense, at all. The script, the acting, props, action scenes, - nothing measures up to any standard other than making a buck from stealing the title from a blockbuster by just throwing something together badly without much of a budget. The dinosaur cgi was half decent though. I cannot blame the actors for bad acting, when probably everything was shot in one take. There simply may have been no time or budget to re-do anything. Perhaps the actors were also lured into this sham, ignorant of it's true nature. There should be laws against this shameless deceit. On the other hand, some bad movies - because they were done badly, either for the lack of skill or on purpose - gain a cult status. This one will not.

Just to describe some major issues: Jack, an ordinary kid, is building/finishing some sort of battle robot as in "Avatar". The feet of the thing are shown several times walking on grass, in the opening scene. Clearly, it is just a couple of cardboard boxes with some spray paint. And he's building this thing for what reason? And with what means? No matter, he's got it working right in the nick of time, to kill the giant dinosaur in the end scene. Another delight is the flying castle. The "engine room" is nothing but an old smith's forge with forging tools hanging on the wall. The beans don't add up. Jack receives two beans. Which he throws away into a field (and grow into a beanstalk). Later, his stepsister finds another bean in Jack's jacket, and plants that one. At the very end of the movie, Jack manages to find another one of those beans in his pocket. Even if he threw away only one bean and inconsistently put the other in his pocket, still one extra bean has magically appeared somehow.

As mentioned in the other reviews, the time setting is inconsistent - old cameras and modern helicopters. Well the list is really endless. My conclusion is, that if you have ocd and enjoy counting goof-ups, you might like this movie a lot. Also it might be fun, to try to explain all the apparent inconsistencies.

this movie would turn every atheist like me to rediscover religion. why? because when i watched it, i couldn't help repeatedly murmuring (actually cursing?) with lot of religious words that only the die-hard church goers would recite faithfully before and in front of every sentence: OMG....oh my god, Jesus...., oh, my lord....oh, lord of mercy...." these words i usually warned myself not to blur out under any circumstance, just wanted to enforce my disbelief of god or gods in plural form. what the bible, the preachers, the reverends or any religion pitching con artist failed to turn me around, this movie succeeded without any difficulty. omg (here's another one repeated helplessly), i rarely saw anything worse than this movie, jack the giant killer was not a giant killer but a metal junkyard welder. he welded a primitive horrible awkward manual robot in the barn and that crappy giant welded together junk could use its hand gun to burst hell fire. this film somehow also might get an Oscar for its naivety, its shallow original script and the worst and most terrible actors, the awkwardness simply surpasses any movie now playing on the screen. i rest my case.

Where do I start? Some movies ARE so bad they're good. I love cheesy movies and was in stitches for most of such classics as 'Killer Clowns from Outer Space', Megashark vs Giant Octopus', and 'Robot Jox'. This I did not love. It was annoying. I'm just not entirely sure why this was simply bad and not cheesy.

Awful acting, Awful plot (in fact, practically none), poor casting, poor direction, bad special effects. Actually, they weren't ALL bad - maybe the production was taken over seriously. Nope, that can't be it as it's already been pointed out the costumes and props were from entirely different time periods (CCTV cameras on walls anyone?)

I think it was simply a lack of care about any single part of the filmmaking process. It's like someone just stood in the street, shouted 'Who wants to make a film that's very loosely based on Jack and the Beanstalk', and the least interested people within earshot all inexplicably volunteered.

Don't watch this film (unless you're imminently dying and have nothing better to do when I guess it might actually make your remaining time feel longer)

I knew it wasn't the Hollywood version. I saw it on Netflix and my daughter is in a 'giant' phase so thought to give it a try.

Dialogue is awful. Acting is awful. Army in charge guy is awful. Jack is awful. Costumes, props out of place. Cgi is awful. Decisions are illogical. Awful nonsense.

Basically, wannabe untalented actors starring in a film with no budget and a very poor script. Sure, why not and I hope they had fun but the end film is crap.

I've said all I needed to above and these extra lines are for padding to meet IMDBs review length requirement.