Jack the Giant Slayer is the latest big-budget retelling of a classic fairy tale to emerge from Hollywood, in this case reimagining “Jack and the Beanstalk” as an action-packed adventure/romance film. It stars Nicholas Hoult as Jack, a lowly peasant who, despite being a peasant laborer, has impressive fighting skills and looks unrealistically clean.
In this version of the tale, the giants are a bloodthirsty race who had previously attacked the kingdom, only to be driven out by the legendary king, whose granddaughter serves as Jack’s love interest. Jack ends up trading a horse for magic beans, sparking off a convoluted adventure into the land of the giants.
The film is lacking in many areas. The dialogue is cliché, the giants are crudely portrayed, and the CGI is somewhat overdone and distracting. However, despite all this, Jack the Giant Slayer still manages to be entertaining. It revels in its own stupidity and because of this manages to be quite fun. It makes no attempt to have any deeper meaning; in fact, the entire movie seems to be based around “the rule of cool.” The scenes appear to have been designed to be as visually appealing as possible, at the expense of all else.
If you want to see a silly but fun fantasy action movie, Jack the Giant Slayer could be worth your time. If you are interested in seeing something that is deep, fascinating, or even well written, I’d look elsewhere.