movie reviews Reviews Great Movies Answer Man People Commentary Festivals Oscars Glossary One-Minute Reviews Letters Roger Ebert's Journal Scanners Store News Sports Business Entertainment Classifieds Columnists search JACK THE GIANT SLAYER (PG-13) Ebert: Users: You: Rate this movie right now GO Search powered by YAHOO! register You are not logged in. Log in » Subscribe to weekly newsletter » times & tickets Jack the Giant Slayer in theaters Fandango / / / February 27, 2013 Search movie more current releases » showtimes and buy tickets. by Richard Roeper one-minute movie reviews You never know. cast & credits about us still playing Based on those Jack Nicholas Hoult Elmont Ewan McGregor About the site » unavoidable TV ads for The Loneliest Planet "Jack the Giant Slayer" Roderick Stanley Tucci 56 Up Site FAQs » featuring CGI-looking giants King Ian McShane Amour clomping around and Gen. Fallon Bill Nighy Beautiful Creatures Contact us » throwing windmills while a Isabelle Eleanor Tomlinson Bless Me, Ultima Broken City hipster-quipster Jack Crawe Eddie Marsan Email the Movie romances a generic-looking Bullet to the Head Answer Man » princess, I wasn't exactly Consuming Spirits Warner Bros. presents a film dreading the screening, but Dark Skies directed by Bryan Singer. Written Everybody in Our Family I can't say I had it circled on Future Weather on sale now my calendar, either. by Darren Lemke, Christopher McQuarrie and Dan Studney. Gangster Squad The Gatekeepers Running time: 115 minutes. Rated I'm pleased to report, A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III however, "Jack the Giant PG-13 (for intense scenes of A Good Day to Die Hard Slayer" is a rousing, original fantasy action violence, some Happy People: A Year in the Taiga and thoroughly entertaining frightening images and brief Hyde Park on Hudson adventure. Director Bryan language). Identity Thief Singer, a first-rate cast and The Impossible a stellar team of In the Hive screenwriters, set designers Jack the Giant Slayer and special-effects wizards John Dies at the End Buy now » have dusted off an old and The Last Stand (let's face it) never Printer-friendly » Like Someone in Love Lore particularly compelling fairy E-mail this to a friend » Lost in Thailand tale and have given us a LUV great-looking thrill ride in Mama which we actually care The Matchmaker about a number of Movie 43 Zero stars characters. Neighboring Sounds North Sea Texas Buy now » There's even room for just the hint of empathy for the giants. It's not Not Yet Begun to Fight easy being a giant. In fact, I have a few questions about the Giant Oscar shorts: Animation No star rating Way of Life, but we'll get to that later. Oscar shorts: Live action No star rating Parade's End "Jack the Giant Slayer" begins with the reading of a legend in two Parker very different homes on the same night. Young Jack, a farm boy Pavilion about 8 years old, has read the story so many times, the pages on Phantom A Place at the Table his book have nearly worn away — yet he begs his kindly, widowed Quartet father to tell him the tale just one more time. Safe Haven Buy now » Side Effects Meanwhile, behind the walls of the castle Cloister, a princess in Sister waiting eagerly absorbs the same story, read to her by her mother, Small Apartments who, like Jack's dad, isn't going to make it past the opening credits of who, like Jack's dad, isn't going to make it past the opening credits of this story. Snitch Somewhere Between Cut to 10 years later. Jack has grown up to become Nicholas Hoult, a Stand Up Guys handsome and almost boringly noble young man now living with his Stoker Stolen Seas bitter old uncle after the plague took Dad. Struck by Lightning The Sweeney Eleanor Tomlinson is Princess Isabelle, who of course is adventurous Tiger Tail in Blue and romantic and incorrigible, and REALLY wishes she didn't have to Buy now » The Trouble with the Truth marry the gross, old and obviously duplicitous Roderick (the great Warm Bodies Stanley Tucci, hamming it up just shy of a mustache twirl). West of Memphis Zero Dark Thirty It takes a long while — truth to be told, a few scenes past the point of more current releases » perfect timing — before we get to the magic beans and the stalk that shoots to the sky and the mysterious land above Earth populated entirely by giants. But once we get there, game on. on dvd Especially when seen in close-up, the giants are pretty awesome. new on dvd Buy now » They're a grotesque bunch of louts, picking their noses and passing gas and making pigs in a blanket, which are literally pigs. In blankets. more new on dvd » As usual, the 3-D is mostly about 2.5-D, though we do get a few battle scenes where you want to duck. But over all, the special effects coming on dvd are impressive. It really looks like those little men are battling those giant-ass giants, who are led by a two-headed general, with the invaluable Bill Nighy buried somewhere in there playing the general. more coming on dvd » There's no way you can have a fair fight between giants and people, great movies on dvd Buy now » so there's a convenient device to level the playing field; a magic crown, forged from ingredients including but not limited to the heart of more great movies on dvd » a long-ago vanquished giant. He who wears the crown has complete command over the giants, and it's the evil Roderick's plan to whip out the crown at just the right moment and lead the giants to a conquest of Cloister and all the kingdoms of Earth. (You'd think Roderick would have been pleased with the deal he already had: marrying the hot young princess, commanding the Buy now» kingdom and living a cushy live, but there you have it.) "Jack the Giant Slayer" is filled with neat touches, from the casting of Ewan McGregor as Elmont, a knight in shining armor who's supposed to be the hero of the story and is indeed A hero, but not THE hero, to an epilogue that's just flat-out cool. The PG-13 violence, including a close-up of an eyeball popping out of a giant's face, means the action is a little too intense for very young children. But for everyone else, including cynical grown-up critics who didn't think they'd ever give a Fee, a Fi, a Fo or a Fum about this movie, it's a terrific adventure. Buy now» Oh, right: the giants. They live in this world between Earth and heaven, and if you're willing to overlook the scary rock formations and the isolation, it seems like a pretty sweet deal. Lush greenery, room for a giant to roam around, plenty to eat if you can curb your appetite for humans. What I want to know is, where are the lady giants and the teenage giants and the baby giants? If there are no women, how do these Buy now» guys not die off? They're not immortal, because several get killed during this movie. It would have been kind of neat to meet the wife of a two-headed giant general, just to see what her deal is and how she spends her days. Maybe someday. © copyright 2013, rogerebert.com Privacy Policy Terms of Use Submission Guidelines.