Jack the Giant Killer (2013)

Very well executed

Redundant and unnecessary.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

All of asylum movies are perfect works of genius. This, Jack The Giant Killer, no exception. It is brilliant. I'm fortunate enough to watch if free on YouTube (not youporn not porntube-- YouTube!) and the computer I've currently borrowed (I'm broke...dog)...well its old and so there's a little image delay sound often too low to hear so I listen to BS cds in place of movie sound.... when I watch movies and videos online...anyway back to my review... Jack The Giant Killer is awesome. Deep psychology here. Surreal ideas. Great actress acting and actors too. DIALOG, dang hot if you ask moi. YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS! AND THEN WATCH Titanic 2. Its that good. Heavy. Far Out. My kinda deal. and yes i'm sober don't drink booze nor smoke pot nor take speed coke heroin nor psychadelics etc.-- that's why MY REVIEW is objective unlike others that diss this movie. (u should be ashamed)

Firstly look at that poster... see that scary monster on the front with those massive teeth? Yeah? Not in the movie!There are monsters, some the size of dinosaurs and one more like Godzilla in proportions, but they are all the same species, a sort of short tailed 6 eyed bull like reptile. The big one is the same CGI model but scaled up.The acting / dialogue is stilted and funny. It has a delightful amateur- dramatics quality to it. And the guy playing the general is hamming it up to Monty Python standards. Nothing about this is remotely believable but as another reviewer noted, the floaty castle is quite nice. Though powered by a fire that looked barely strong enough to toast marshmallows on. The CGI - is very bad, very 90s. Probably someone with a copy of some 3D software offered to do it for free. The worst is the whip effects of the beanstalk. Anyway I highly recommend you don't waste money on this - if you can watch it for free and make a drinking game or something silly out of it then you may have a better evening than I did.

While I hate most of the Asylum's movies with a passion, I keep watching because there is something somewhat entertaining about their awfulness and also there's a glimmer of hope that they'd do something halfway tolerable. The Asylum oddly enough have made a few tolerable movies though the best they get is only decent. Jack the Giant Killer is not the worst from them, but it is still really bad. It looks amateurish from a starting point. Watching the costumes, sets and props I didn't and still don't have a clue about what time period the movie was supposed to be set in, and the laughable special effects(especially with some of the worst dinosaur, seemingly poor and personality-less substitutes for giants, effects I've seen for any movie) and editing that looks that someone was having a drug hallucination are no better. The music sounds weird, is not memorable in the slightest and doesn't fit at all. The dialogue is stilted and often sounded like senseless babbling with the actors clearly struggling to get their words out, it also has a lot of cheese and this is when the murky sound is not drowning it out too much. The story, aside from it having a complete lack of originality and borrowing heavily from the likes of Jurassic Park and Aliens, is a structurally thin bore that doesn't make sense or have any charm, fun, wonder, thrills or heart. In my mind, the attempt to mix a Grimms fairytale-like atmosphere with a quasi-modern twist also didn't gel. The characters are annoying and never developed, they're just there for the sake of it. The acting is poor, Jamie Atkins badly under-performs to the point that his performance is lost amidst everything else. Ben Cross and Jane March(who actually gives the movie's best performance) fare better but are severely under-used so while they try hard their characters just don't register and they don't bring much particularly new to them either. To conclude, not The Asylum's worst but has nothing to recommend it apart from perhaps Jane March's beauty. 1/10 Bethany Cox

Jack the Giant Killer is set in a fantasy world made up of elements of different times. Critics complain about this but the story itself is solid despite the dramatic license taken. True, there are no "giants" but perhaps this is made this way to show that there were no "real giants". However we do know that the prehistoric creatures did exist now, right? The mixing of elements of different points of History are what makes the movie a timeless fantasy. One reviewer was correct about the story borrowing from elements of other stories such as "Jurassic Park", and "Aliens" but I have no clue where in the bloody hell he got the comparisons to "Roots" and "Brigadoon"...Really? Come now...I had more of a human-like "Dr. Who" comparison come to mind toward the end with that flying castle and such...This movie is a race against time and evil. It also has other conflicts- -man vs. nature, man vs. man, man vs. evil, etc...When there are more two of the major types of conflict present, then it makes a movie worth watching. Now let us get to the performances. First I will say that given the fact that this is a timeless fantasy, it cannot be set in a definite year. Not even the music indicates what time period it should be set in and I feel this is to keep the movie from being boxed into a period of time. When done deliberately it is not a flaw but great writing. The critics who said otherwise didn't get it. This viewer did. It is NOT boring to say the least.There is comic relief from the military characters--especially the general (Steve McTigue). He's hilarious as the bumbling general!Then there are Jane March (Serena) and Harry Dyer (Newald Kutchins). Evidently Newald is the only human she's had feelings for since her mother. She wants revenge for being kidnapped by giants (she says) but it's obvious that she wants more than that. Then there is Jack (Jamie Atkins) and Lisa (Vicki Glover). While it is obvious that there are feelings there--strong ones, more interaction comes from the other characters. In fact it is the others characters that are driving the story aside from the Serena plot.Even though it is called "Jack the Giant Killer", the support characters seem to drive the story to it's climax. For me this is a first. I would expect more interaction between Jack and others but the entire cast worked well together to bring this project home. Now I will get to what people seem to be waiting for me to make a comment on. Ben Cross as "Agent Hinton". Very good performance. The man always delivers and Hollywood screwed up by not utilizing him more over the years. This is one actor who does NOT short change his fans--PERIOD. And if it makes the lot of you feel better, he says it's a "bad movie". Then again, I'm not an actor, I'm a viewer. An average viewer is going to find this film sort of campy and fun since it can be watched with the kiddies.This actor got a huge break with the show "Banshee" last year, and if he doesn't finally get the attention he deserves for his work over the past 40 years, then Hollywood is seriously on an acid trip or something of that nature. One thing I will say for both Ben Cross and Jane March is that their talents are vastly under-utilized. She is one of the first actresses that I have seen in a long time that will allow a character to breathe through her. HELLO Hollywood: Get her on your bloody radar.As for the movie itself, you will find no sex, guts or gore so the whole family can watch it, which is probably the real reason why critics raised hell over it. Nobody needs to have that in a film to sell it. That is a myth. Despite this, I noticed that the performances were never complained about. They didn't complain about the use of CGI which was also well done. All in all it is NOT a waste of money if you want a movie the family can watch. Just do not expect a certain time period for it because it really is not meant to have a certain time period. This way the kids can enjoy it and then the grand kids. This is not the first story I've encountered of this nature, either. Get the DVD, grab some popcorn and enjoy it...Movie theater tickets are priced through the roof in a lot of places anyway!