“I’m trying to marathon this weekend’s blog posts right now. Instead of running home after today’s movie (which likely won’t get blogged til tomorrow) I went straight to MIT and I’m in one of the computer clusters frantically typing up yesterday’s before Wedding Singer stuff. Meant to get these done last night after Tenacious D and/or this morning, but the choreo inspiration struck. Anyhoo.
I’m liking this trend of fairy tale movies. Or at least, I’m liking the idea behind it. I have yet to be truly impressed with one, at least for anything besides the costumes. Sadly, Jack The Giant Slayer missed the mark yet again, and it can’t even boast beautiful threads.
It’s strongest point were the leading men. I’ll certainly give it that. I’m loving Nicholas Hoult more and more and more with each subsequent film. Here we see him again with his native accent (that first captivated me in A Single Man) and as much charm as ever. Ewan McGregor had a rare scenery chewing character (he’s usually the heart, which fell to Nicholas this time). I thought it was a brilliant and unique turn for him. Stanley Tucci and Ian McShane added some star power to it as well. But when these boys aren’t given much to work with, not even they can save it.
Actually, one other thing I could appreciate was the production design. Even if the costumes weren’t up to par with what Colleen Atwood has done for her fairy tale forays, the set looked beautiful. There were pieces of it that did not look entirely CGI-ed, but made me think of playgrounds at Disneyland. I really wanted to climb that beanstalk, and I’m not much for climbing.
The story did expand a bit on the Jack and the beanstalk tale we all know, but I didn’t find any of it to be that special. It was a little dark in that it had a rather high body count, though most deaths happened just out of view (trying to keep it minimally family friendly, I suppose). Once the adventure got going, I was scheming dinner instead of watching with rapt attention. Oh and the princess character seemed kinda half written. She wanted to be her own person and an adventurer, but she still was damsel relying on Jack. Way to think that one thru, writers.
I’d seen a comment that most of the effort of the film was spent on the giants CGI. Not gonna disagree with that statement. I did see some inconsistencies with sizes and proportions, but only because I was trying to find something to keep me in the game. Maybe some more comic relief with those characters? I liked the second head of the main giant, but he could have been a much funnier force. Eh, whatever. Done done and I’m on to the next one
Jack the Giant Slayer – \m/ \m/ \m