Trailer Trashin’: It’s a Fractured Fairy Tale in Jack the Giant Slayer

Now that we’ve all survived both Thanksgiving celebrations and the insanity of Black Friday, the beginning of the holiday season is nigh. And with that beginning comes yet another trailer for one of next year’s movies. In this week’s installment of Trailer Trashin’, let’s take a look at the official trailer for Bryan Singer’s Jack the Giant Slayer.

Premise: An ancient war is reignited when a young farmhand unwittingly opens a gateway between our world and a fearsome race of giants. Unleashed on the Earth for the first time in centuries, the giants strive to reclaim the land they once lost, forcing the young man, Jack (Nicholas Hoult), into the battle of his life to stop them. Fighting for a kingdom, its people, and the love of a brave princess, he comes face to face with the unstoppable warriors he thought only existed in legend – and gets the chance to become a legend himself.

My take: If you got a feeling of déjà vu from this trailer, it’s not your imagination. This movie was originally titled Jack the Giant Killer and a trailer for it was released in December of last year, when the movie was supposed to come out June 2012. According to Warner Bros., the delay was done to give the filmmakers more time to work on the effects, as well as give the studio more time to promote the movie. Now we have a new trailer for the film, now called Jack the Giant Slayer, but while it doesn’t look terrible, it still doesn’t look all that great.

There are a lot of talented people in the cast, but unfortunately it doesn’t look like they have good material to work from. Nicholas Hoult is a great young actor, as anyone who’s seen him in About a Boy (2002) and X-Men: First Class (2011) can attest, but Jack just seems pretty bland as heroes go. Eleanor Tomlinson plays Isabelle, the kidnapped princess, and it doesn’t seem like she fares any better than Hoult. The great Stanley Tucci plays Lord Roderick, who is described as “an adviser to the king with designs on usurping power” – wow, how incredibly original (sarcasm), but at least he seems to be having some fun. Ian McShane plays King Brahmwell, Isabelle’s father, who disapproves of a union between his daughter and a farmer boy – given what an amazing acting talent McShane is, this sounds like such a waste. Although we don’t hear much of them, character actor extraordinaire Bill Nighy and John Kassir, the voice of the Crypt Keeper in Tales from the Crypt, provide the voices of Fallon, the two-headed giant leader. The person who I thought came across the best is Ewan McGregor as Elmont, the leader of the king’s elite guard; the character seems pretty entertaining, and McGregor is clearly enjoying himself. And if that voice at the beginning sounds familiar, that’s because it’s none other than Gandalf himself, Ian McKellen, reciting that actually kind of cool rhyming verse.

I do like the designs they came up with for the giants, which remind me in some ways of classic monsters like the Cyclops from The 7^th Voyage of Sinbad (1958). I also like the way they differentiate between the various giants – they’re all similar enough that they’re clearly the same race/species/whatever, but with enough variations that they’re clearly not just the same character model with minor alterations. The scale of the action is also pretty impressive. You can’t go wrong with a good castle siege, and I like the moment of the one giant throwing the windmill blades.

However, there are plenty of things that dampen my enthusiasm. Despite all the extra time they’ve had to work on the effects, most shots of the giants are still a little too obviously CG. A lot of the time, the giants look kind of shiny, as if they’ve been given a light coating of glossy paint. Also, the tone of the film just seems inconsistent. I’m not sure whether the film is supposed to be a straightforward adventure film with some comedic moments, or a full-on adventure/comedy mix. The marketing should make it clear what sort of tone the filmmakers want to achieve. But ultimately, my main problem comes down to the fact that they’re trying to take the story of “Jack and the Beanstalk” and turn it into a fantasy epic – I think that is pretty much the definition of putting a silk hat on a pig.

I wish that I didn’t feel so negative about this. Bryan Singer is a great director, the cast is really talented, and if done well, this could have been a fun throwback to the old Harryhausen films. But the dodgy effects, inconsistent tone, and attempt to turn the story into something it’s not are pretty glaring strikes against it. If the movie ends up getting good reviews when it comes out, I might reconsider, but for the moment, I’m not interested in Jack the Giant Slayer.

ANTICIPATION: This looks pretty “fee fi ho hum” to me, so I’ll probably be giving it a miss.

Release Date: March 1^st, 2013

Starring: Nicholas Hoult, Eleanor Tomlinson, Stanley Tucci, Ian McShane, Bill Nighy, John Kassir, Ewan McGregor, and Eddie Marsan
Director: Bryan Singer
Writers: Darren Lemke, Christopher McQuarrie, Dan Studney, and David Dobkin

P.S. Over the weekend, I got out to the theater and saw Silver Linings Playbook. Our own Dane Jackson gave it a glowing review, and I fully support his opinion. It’s an awesome movie, and I highly recommend all of you go see it.