In the glut of post- Lord of the Rings fairy tale adaptations, 2013’s Jack the Giant Slayer arrived with a curious mix of ambitions. Directed by Bryan Singer (of X-Men and The Usual Suspects fame), the film takes the humble English fable of “Jack and the Beanstalk” and blows it up to a $200 million, CGI-heavy, medieval war epic. The result is a cinematic contradiction: a film that is simultaneously breathtaking in its scale and surprisingly weightless in its execution. It is a giant-sized entertainment that, much like its titular characters, has big feet but not always a firm footing.
The story follows Jack (Nicholas Hoult), a young farmhand who inadvertently opens a gateway between the human realm and Gantua, the sky-world of a fearsome race of giants. When Princess Isabelle (Eleanor Tomlinson) is carried off into the sky by the rapidly growing beanstalk, Jack joins the King's elite guardians, led by Elmont (Ewan McGregor), on a perilous rescue mission. jack and the giants movie
The most damning critique, however, is the lack of genuine heart. The romance between Jack and Isabelle feels contractual rather than passionate. The giants, for all their terrifying design, are one-note monsters. There’s no pathos, no tragic backstory, just a desire to eat “Cloisters.” The film forgets that the best fantasy stories (from Pan’s Labyrinth to The NeverEnding Story ) succeed because of their emotional stakes, not just their spectacle. In the glut of post- Lord of the