One thing this current run of blockbuster fairytales inspired by Tim Burtons Alice in Wonderland has taught us is how very hard it is to be Tim Burton.
MOVIE REVIEW
Jack the Giant Slayer: Fee fie ho hum | 2½ stars
February 28
By ROGER MOORE
McClatchy-Tribune
Multiple versions of Snow White, a comic splatter film Hansel & Gretel some have attempted Burtons visual whimsy, and all have failed to find his tone.
Bryan (X-Men, Usual Suspects) Singer takes his shot with Jack the Giant Slayer, a genial, watchable and somewhat violent version of Jack and the Beanstalk that lacks much in the way of magic, romance or wit.
The best two jokes are in the opening credits, with Singers Usual Suspects-inspired production company logo rendered into a police lineup of giants and at the final curtain, suggesting the storys connection to modern Englishmen whose blood those rhyming giants smell after theyve started their fee, fie, foe and fum.
Notice I said giants. As in legions of them. The familiar tale of the farm boy who loses the family horse (in this case) for a bag of magic beans, the towering stalk that reaches into the heavens and a giants lair, the magic harp, goose that lays golden eggs, etc., have been given a video-game framework here.
The boy (Nicholas Hoult of Warm Bodies) is still gullible. He still finds the beans. But theres a spirited princess Isabelle (Eleanor Tomlinson, who was in Alice in Wonderland) who needs rescuing, a power-mad lord high constable (Stanley Tucci) to foil, a soldier (Ewan McGregor) to befriend and all those giants to slay.
Its The Princess Bride without the laughs.
A charming prologue has young Jack and young Isabelle hearing the rhyming legend of the land of giants from their respective parents.
Ten years later, Jacks injunction to take responsibility is ignored when he loses the farm horse to a monk with a mission to get those magic beans to a safe place. Accidents happen, the stalk grows, taking the princess skyward with it. The king (Ian McShane, in a silly suit of armor) is at a loss. He sends an expedition up the stalk to find her.
Thats where Jack meets Elmont, the dashing captain of the guards, given a World War II, tally ho fighter pilots swagger by McGregor. Pity about the haircut.
And thats where Jack runs afoul of the scheming Roderick, played with mildly malevolent glee by Tucci. The moment he flashes that gap between his teeth, older movie fans will see who hes going for, an old school Terry-Thomas-style rotter, somebody the giants can deal with.
There are moments of Shrek-like playfulness in the carnival set up at the base of the stalk as our heroes and villains climb it. But the vast array of writers (Christopher McQuarrie among them) cant find anything funny for McShane to do or say. And the hilarious Bill Nighy is lost inside an expensively animated two-headed behemoth.
Which is the lot of the film as well. For all Singers expertise at making the fantastic real, all were left with here is an expensive-looking bauble worth eyeing, but not really anything to treasure.




