The ancient war between humans and a race of giants is reignited when Jack, a young farmhand fighting for a kingdom and the love of a princess, opens a gateway between the two worlds.
X-men’s Bryan Singer rewrites the fairytale with Nicholas Hoult as Jack, while lacklustre CGI work supplies the giants. Bloodless violence and fart jokes suggests this is aimed at kids – but the swearing, and fee-fi-ho-hum plot, are not.
The felling of the beanstalk is – especially in 3D – a dynamic set piece, but it is too little to elevate the film to anything more than mundanity.
Jack the Giant Slayer is more palatable than recent post-modern fairy-tale riffs, like Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, with Singer bringing a storybook feel to the action. And if nothing else, you get to see McGregor as a human-sized sausage roll – and it’s not often you can say that.
A special effects display in search of a story, X-Men director Bryan Singer’s take on Jack and the Beanstalk seems more interested in using digital technology to render hordes of rampaging giants on screen than finding a way to make the fairytale genuinely compelling for a new audience.
Jack is a well-built picture in which a likeable cast have fun. And seeing that is often enough to convince us we are, too.
With its third-act chase and siege to the fore, it actually ends more strongly than it starts.
Far from the giant mess you’d expect from the delayed release, late title change and a production history as muddled as the source material, Singer’s tall tale is snatched from disaster by an all-hell-breaks-loose third act.
Bryan Singer isn't interested in any psychological Bruno Bettelheim stuff; anyway, it's boisterously silly and enjoyable.
Singer does a respectable job of turning a fairytale into a muscular epic but my overriding impression was: why bother? Fee...Fye....Foe....Hmmm.
A big success.
Some detailed design work doesn't save a lackluster whole.
The latest fairy tale reimagined for the big screen, Jack The Giant Slayer is a half-hearted affair. Not the disaster you might be expecting, but flatulent, nose-picking CGI giants are beneath the man who gave us The Usual Suspects.
Jack’s narrative is persistently reframed, first as animation, then bedtime story and finally as a London tour guide’s anecdote: a baffling postmodern muddle, suggestive less of cleverness than unresolved script conferences.
The family audience deserves better than this.
General release. Check local listings for show times.
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