Tags
2013, action, beanstalk, blog, cgi, children, computer, drama, ewan mcgregor, fairy tale, fantasy, film, giant, jack, king, magic beans, meme, movie, nicholas hoult, princess, review, slayer, smurfin the web
Synopsis: An ancient war between men and giants is reignited when Jack meets a princess and inadvertently manages to grow a beanstalk which reconnects the two realms. Will Jack be able to rescue the princess and make it back down before the giants do?
Main Cast: Nicholas Hoult, Eleanor Tomlinson, Ewan McGregor, Stanley Tucci, Ralph Brown, Ian McShane, Warwick Davis, Bill Nighy
The Hype: After a run of fairy tale films, Jack The Giant Slayer is the most recent and the studio seems to be spending big here. This is another movie that Bryan Singer has put his name behind as director and with the big budget the movie was expected to do big things at the box office.
What I Thought: I actually quite enjoyed this one. It was certainly better than I expected it to be and it reminded me a little of the old fantasy films that I used to watch as a child with the exception of all the computer generated stuff, that back then would have been done by Henson and The Creature Workshop. That said, the CGI was pretty impressive and there was a lot in there to amuse us, for example the kitchen scene where the giant attempts to cook the Captain of the Guard, Elmont played really well here by Ewan McGregor. His very posh English accent was hammed up enough for it to appear silly and it even had us predicting a couple of lines that he then used, so it did its job nicely. The rest of the cast was not too shabby either, and most did a good job. The story is a decent take on the classic fairy tale and they managed to stay away from the “horror remake” and just re-did a children’s classic, although the swearing could have been left out of it; my son would probably have enjoyed this, but there are a couple of bad words too many for his ears I’m afraid which spoils it a little unfortunately.
Conclusions: Nice CGI, classic story, good performances and some good humour for the adults make this a decent reboot of a good fairy tale story and its worth a watch.
Smurfin’ The Web Rating: 
Trailer:
Smurfin' The Web 