Review of Jack the Giant Slayer (2013) by Mloy X — 04 Aug 2013

Elmont (McGregor): Fear of heights?

Jack (Hoult): Fear of falling.

Elmont (McGregor): Well then don't fall!

I was hoping that this movie was more entertaining that it actually turned out to be since the trailer looked so enticing. But alas, like many films of late, it had the potential to wow yet under-delivered. I wanted so much to like Nicholas Hoult, he's very charming in X-men: First Class as Beast and I loved him as "R" in Warm Bodies and of course, he was very charismatic as the unequivocally naughty Tony Stonem in the E4 drama series Skins but he failed to impress in this film. I hate to say it but he was kind of bland in this film, totally vanilla (Sorry Nick). Fortunately, the film had plenty of my favorite talented actors from across the pond to keep me entertained, namely Ewan McGregor (who plays Elmont, luv him! Wished there was more of him in the film), awesome character actor Eddie Marsan (Crawe) and of course, the ubber wonderful Bill Nighy (General Fallon) who can make any film worth seeing even if he doesn't have to physically appear on screen. His lovely Irish brogue alone can send my heart aflutter. (What can I? He's a sexy senior.) Stanley Tucci is normally pretty good but I can't help thinking that his part was meant for, if not better suited for Mark Strong. Just a thought. The story was a cool take on the folklore and I liked how they tied it to the present but the final confrontation with the giants, I felt, was a bit of a cop-out. The CG was alright but nothing we haven't seen before. So overall, the film was good enough to view once-- it wasn't awful and yet it wasn't really all that special. It was really very average. Good, but average.