Jack The Giant Slayer

Trailer:
Coming soon

If you've been following this blog you'll notice I've been reviewing things by release date. There's been Oblivion and Pines followed by Olympus Has Fallen, all  written within a few days of the release date. It's a film review blog that really keeps on top of things.

So here's my review of Jack the Giant Slayer, a film that came out in early March.

In my mind it was a film that came out in time for the Easter holidays for the sake of a film coming out in time for the Easter holidays. 'Dark' retellings of fairy tales have been done to death recently and I don't think any have really stood out as being exceptional. There's been some quite good [Snow White and The Huntsman] and some completely abysmal [Mirror Mirror] and I think Jack fits in between the two, probably closer to Huntsman than the travesty that was Mirror Mirror.

The majority of the film is a big budget pantomime. The kind a middle to upper class family would take their children to and come out and tell their friends, 'Oh we took Edward and Poppy to see that Jack and the Beanstalk film! Some of it was revolting but it was ever so exciting!'. People fall over for comic effect, there's bodily humour jokes whenever there's a giant on screen. It's a family crowd-pleaser, not a dark sophisticated film of redemption.

The bad guys are like pictures of snooty princes in a children's books brought to life. Their joined by the secondary bad guys- the giants, one of which looks remarkably like John Locke from Lost. They seem to go from being savage cave men to well spoken warriors scene from scene but it can be forgiven,the whole films is just a bit of fun. They look very obviously CGI'd as well which takes away any realism but  again that doesn't matter to kids who will get the most from this film. Some scenes in which they react with the humans are so ridiculous however they resemble the 'Write the theme tune, sing the theme tune' sketches in Little Britain with the size-differnce humour.

If the film was set in the present this could be a scene taken straight from it

There's also the token comedy aside character, the token princess who wants to explore and
has a sense of adventure and the token bumbling protagonist that goes on a journey from weedy farm boy to hero of the land. Spoilers I suppose but it's a fantasy aimed at children, you know pretty much in the first 10 minutes the films not going to end with him lying bloodied and dying.

It sounds like I really didn't enjoy the film but I did. When the action picks up in the last third it does get pretty exciting and there's plenty of 'Will they make it out alive?!' scenes even though you kinda know they will.

As much as it's a kids film it is pretty violent and it's good to see they didn't shy away from scenes of soldiers getting eaten alive or crushed to death by debris or massive giant hands. It turns it from being a silly kids story to a half big fantasy epic. It's a fun little ride and I came out smiling.

You probably won't be able to see it in cinemas anymore but if its on TV it's half worth a watch in the background, especially if you have pompous family with you. They'll lap it up

6/10