Jack the Giant Slayer (2013)

I write on a hurry = this is a short entry. Since I don't have anything better, I'll stay in the story area with one of the adaptations appeared in the lately trend: "Snow White" - 2 versions, "Oz", and this title: "Jack the Giant Slayer". Let me try to be short and to the point.

You know the story. Or not :) Well, is somewhere around the classic version. Jack gives a horse for some beans, from the beans a stalk rises, at the end of the stalk there are some giants .. ok, stop; we already have differences - a horse instead of a cow; giants - the plural - instead of giant .. we can add also a princess, an evil plot, and I should stop since the trailer tells you already enough.

What surprised me when I heard about the movie was the directing: Bryan Singer and the script: Cristopher McQuarrie. A couple known for .. "The Usual Suspects", "Valkyrie", "X-Men", etc. So ... not that close to classic fantasy. Still, I was optimistic because most of the titles where the two were involved didn't have extremely negative points (even though X-Men is quite far from my preferences). After seeing the movie I can say that I was right. It's not a masterpiece, but the story that I avoided detailing above is interestingly enough transposed into a script and directed. Gives you the impression that you have a sort of season 1 and season 2 condensed = at some moment when you're about to say ok .. the end credits will follow and the next year the sequel will follow, surprise .. we have the sequel on the spot. I hope I won't start to ramble incoherently, but the effect created is for the viewer as an upgrade from a vacation short film: bad things happen, hero saves the day .. to .. :) a vacation longer film: bad things happen, hero saves the day, really bad things happen, hero really saves the day :). It's not much, but somehow it propells the movie from superficial to an actual decent level. Even more, I was expecting something relatively "light" as deepness, since the story doesn't have much substance being a sort of campy child's tale. This is confirmed, but still there is some try for dramatic nuances on several characters. Only some try, doesn't get very far :) but it's still enough to feel it a little bit.

Overall, an enjoyable movie.

Rating: 3 out of 5