Few fairy tales have made a good impression on the big screen. There was “Red Riding Hood” in 2011 and recently “Snow White and the Huntsman” in 2012. Thanks to those two and a couple others, my view on these types of movies is a little jaded. I still have yet to see “Hansel and Gretel” which came out this year, so I was not so hopeful with “Jack the Giant Slayer”.
“Jack” starts with showing Jack as a little boy and Isabelle as a little girl being read the story of Giants. Fast forward 10 years and Jack is now living with his uncle because his dad passed away from the plague. His uncle has fallen on bad times and has asked Jack to go to the castle and sell their horse and cart. While in town he stumbles upon a play about the great king who stopped the giant invasion. The princess Isabelle is secretly watching it and gets herself into trouble and Jack tries to save her. On his way out of the castle he is asked to sell his horse by a monk who offers him beans instead of cash. Jack takes the beans and the monk rides off on his horse.
Jack makes it back to his uncles and shows off the beans he got for payment. The beans are knocked from Jacks hands all over the house. He manages to pick them all up but one that falls through a crack on the floor. Before he was given the beans he was instructed to not get them wet. Of course that night it starts to rain and the princess leaves the castle to just go out on a journey. To get out of the storm she makes her way to Jacks uncles place. The bean gets wet from the rain and the beanstalk starts to grow all the way to giant land.
The king gathers his best men to climb the stalk to get the princess back. Thanks to Jack falling out down to the ground when the beanstalk was growing he asks if he can go to rescue her. One of the men going is betrothed to the princess and has other plans when he arrives in the new land to control the giants with the magical crown of the old king. He plans on taking control of the giants and leading an attack on our world to control everything.
Nicholas Hoult who you might recognize from his other movie this year “Warm Bodies” plays Jack. He was also in last year “X-Men: First Class” as Beast. He did a pretty good job in this movie that doesn’t really have any standout performances. All of the giants are CGI and the wonderful Bill Nighy voices the main giant Fallon. Ian McShane plays the king and his daughter Isabella is played by Eleanor Tomlinson.
The movie is rated PG-13 for intense scenes of fantasy action violence, some frightening images and brief language. The only “intense scene” is blurred out by the camera or it moves at the right time and you never see the giant eat the person or animal. It’s always implied though. I’d say this movie is for all ages and I think you should take your kids to it. It is a good movie but not a great movie. It made up for the last movie I saw that you can read about by clicking here.
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