A quiet hero, a couple hundred dim-witted giants, a handful of beans, and some unimportant secondary characters is never an acceptable combination for any action movie, and the movie Jack the Giant Slayer is no exception. Although there have been well-made adaptations of children’s books in the past, Jack the Giant Slayer fails to match their success, due to its mediocre scripting and excessive unnecessary details.
The plot of the movie is fairly simple. Jack, an honest but rather wimpy commoner, unintentionally strikes a deal with a shady merchant when he mistakenly trades his goods for “magic” beans. When Jack loses one of the beans under the floorboards of his own house, all hell breaks loose. He accidentally plants a huge skyward-bound beanstalk, allowing the giants to come down to earth and take back their land, which the humans of Earth are currently living on.
In an attempt to change the narration of its children’s book counterpart, “Jack and the Beanstalk,” Jack the Giant Slayer includes many alterations to the short story, some changing the plotline more drastically than others. However, many of these changes are either too unrealistic to be enjoyable or a misuse of the movie’s two-hour time span.
Similarly, Jack’s attitude doesn’t make him seem like a modern-day hero, nor a strong giant-slayer. Although he kills three giants throughout the whole movie, he hardly reacts to their demise. He simply flicks his hair, smiles, and walks away from the giants, seemingly unaffected by his own achievement.
In truth, Jack’s only distinctive quality is his handsomeness, which is obviously the reason that the captured Queen Isabella likes him – not just because of his ability to plant giant beanstalks on dry land and save her from the land above the beanstalk.
Most of the visuals and action seemed to be reminiscent of the violence presented in the “Lord of the Rings” movies, an exaggeration of what computer graphics can do for a movie production.
However, close-ups on the massive giants picking their noses, rubbing some part of their bodies, or getting some exercise by walking across earth is wasting the potential of 3D. Most of the time, these close-ups are only disturbing and unneeded. With all the violence and discomforting images, the differences between the movies and the traditional story are all too easily seen – and the changes aren’t welcome. The movie is a disgrace to the original tale upon which it’s based, and a disappointment to kids who are looking to see something family-friendly and familiar.
Jack the Giant Slayer is rated PG-13 and runs for 113 minutes.