Fee Fi Foe Fum indeed. With a cavalcade of fantasy films being unleashed upon us and the imminent return of HBO’s Game Of Thrones, it’s taking something magical to stand above the rest of the crows and thank the gods the Jack and the Beanstalk adaptation, Jack The Giant Slayer; which just about manages to do it under the watchful eye of Bryan Singer.
Sent off to market to sell his poor uncle’s only asset (his horse and cart), young educated farmer Jack (Nicholas Hoult, X-Men: First Class) ends up with some supposed magic beans from an honest monk. After two eventful meetings with Princess Isabelle (Eleanor Tomlinson, Alice In Wonderland) of the realm Cloister, the beans sprout and turn in giant beanstalks, propelling Isabelle and Jack’s farm up into unknown lands in the heavens above. He nominates himself to go with King Brahmwell’s (Ian McShane, Snow White & The Huntsmen) advisor, Roderick (Stanley Tucci, The Hunger Games), and lead knight, Elmont (Ewan McGregor, The Impossible), to go on a rescue mission to save the Princess and also investigate if those pesky, man-eating giants who live above the clouds may actually turn out to be real.
Straight off the bat, Hoult is smashing as Jack. He captures the right balance of entering teenagehood and last of youthful curiosity as the adventurous farmer and unlikely hero. As the name says on the tin, he is a giant slayer and there is plenty of decent kills he gets on his belt to convince audiences that is worthy of being a hero (the last giant he despatches is easily the best death in cinema we’ll see this year). A great showing from a quality actor in Hoult, coming a long way from his Tony in Skins and About A Boy days.
But that’s a wee problem with the film – Elmont does his fair share of heroic deeds too, so it’s like having two hero protagonists with them both struggling for the lead role. Of course, it’s Jack’s movie so he’s going to have the cool moments like taking out the giants and getting the princess for example. They must have cast McGregor and then struggled to come up with set pieces for him to separate him from Jack as they come across as the same hero in two roles.
That’s not to say McGregor as Elmont isn’t entertaining. He’s marvellous as a traditional knight, all righteous, honourable and blonde moustached, who learns a thing or two about common folk like Jack. McShane as Brahmwell is exceptional as well. The role isn’t particularly big but he’s a great bad ass king, leading the front line when the giants are at his door. He’s even sympathetic when he orders to cut the giant beanstalk down, losing his daughter in the process, so the giants don’t come to Cloister. Always consistently enthralling is McShane – here is no different.
On the other hand, Tomlinson is left choking by Isabelle’s character. Whilst trying to be independent from her father and her role as princess etc. she ends up being a dismal damsel in distress in a seen-it-before stereotype. Least Tomlinson is pretty enough to capture the essence of a princess trying to stand up for herself, and she doesn’t come across as a bad actress; just one stuck with a bad character.
The usually fantastic Tucci seems to be slumming it a bit too; he gets in a couple of zinger lines but hardly anything to make him a memorable villain. No standout moments either come to think of it. More entertaining was his clever but stupid sidekick Wicke, played by the downright odd looking Ewen Bremner (Alien Vs. Predator).
But you didn’t turn up to see a film about giants wrecking up the place for the human cast! The computer generated giants we have in Giant Slayer are actually really good. Can’t fault the ridiculous attention to detail in the quality of the CGI models and, for something completely animated and fake, the giants comes across as realistic. No odd movements or any real negatives I can level but it would have been nice for some difference in the giant’s costumes. They are all pretty much in the same grey armour and murky brown skin colour. How about some clothes to make them standout more?
They do have some distinctive quirks and personalities. The watershed is the lead two-headed giant, with one head being the clever leader of the giant clan (voiced by Bill Nighy, last in the Total Recall remake) and the other a mentally simple, unintelligible lackey. The exchanges between the two are golden, both vocal and physical. The others are mainly kept to afro haircuts, different armours etc. which isn’t terrible but their similar skin colour does really distract by being so plain – Considering Jack The Giant Slayer is a film all about the g-men and make them interesting, it’s criminal. They do get some nice shots in and wreck up the hero’s castle in the end as compensation.
Easily the best aspect about the giants is the sense of scale between them and crew when they interact. It’s done right with the appropriate level of big vs. small and the physical exchanges over how a massive sword is only half a toothpick in a giant’s fingers truly grounds the film and makes it realistic. Scenes where Jack aims a huge knife in the giant’s kitchen in one of them’s back are technically sound and are filled with wonder.
Director Bryan Singer, famed for Usual Suspects and the X-Men films, captures the right spirit for this film. Giant Slayer is made fun to watch without trying to be, which is more than I can say for the other fantasy films it’s competing with, the boring, plastic, Oz The Great And Powerful and trying to be serious in a comedic way first The Hobbit movie. Singer always makes nice films to look at, being well made and clear. Whilst not having many 3D elements, it’s nice to have a proper HD level film to have at the cinema – a true work of art in computer generated imagery. There’s also some decent set work with the cast interacting with environments, which in an age of films over relying on CGI and making films completely artificial needs to be encouraged more.
Everything is in there that you want from a Beanstalk movie. The titular stalk is a tremendous spectacle in of itself. The giants are wonderfully disgusting, farting and burping constantly, but command a level of fear. It’s easily the best fantasy film I’ve seen recently, which makes me more than a tad surprised at how poorly it’s done at the box office in other countries. Maybe there is a sense of audience burnout consider we’ve had three blockbuster level films within three months or perhaps with the preferred guaranteed quality of The Hobbit and the A-list cast for Oz The Great And Powerful, audiences were unwilling to view the perceived “third place” in Jack The Giant Killer.
However, as an adaptation of the Jack and the Beanstalk fairytale, Jack The Giant Slayer is utterly wonderful. An unabashed popcorn flick which excels on entertainment and technical values. It doesn’t have the most famous cast and neither are the characters 100% clear but the giants are worth the money alone. A pretty film to look at over the Easter break. Highly enjoyable.
Terry Lewis – @thatterrylewis.
