Movie Review: “Jack the Giant Slayer”

POINTS: Pretty movie and fun take on the whole Jack and the Giant Beanstalk story.

PITFALLS: 1) Jack’s Pants. They look like jeans. In fact, there is a close-up of his pants and THEY LOOK LIKE JEANS!!! Uh, no. 2) Jack Clothes. He looks out of place. Maybe they were going for that but uh, no. He looks like he just walked out of 21st century London. No, no, wrong costuming choice. 3) General’s Helmet. What? Why did the Medieval era general have on a helmet that looked like it came right out of the the 1800s? 4.) Two women. Seriously? Princess Isabel was fun and her mom seemed cool, but good grief Mom was only in the movie for a few minutes and after that Isabel was the only female character. More would have been nice. 5.) All Giants Are Men? Ok, so if all giants are men, how do they procreate? It seems to me this is blind chauvinism: We are blind to seeing women therefore we don’t show them. 6.) Lead Male. It’s not that Nicolas Hoult who plays Jack isn’t nice looking, but well, he didn’t seem good looking enough for the role. Or maybe they just didn’t make him up or costume him right. (Yeah, like I haven’t mentioned that before.) Also sure, it is hard to look good when standing next to Ewan McGregor in black armor and look good.

FEMALE CHARACTER(S): Princess Isabel was fun. However since this was basically a fantasy movie, why couldn’t there have been female guards, and even female commander speaking parts? That would have been nice. Oh and yes it was nice to hear Isabel say that if she were a prince she would have been allowed more freedom.

CULTURAL PITFALL(S): See above comments about the movie having very few women.

HIGH POINT(S): I really liked how the giants would bow. And I loved how Jack and Elmont (a high ranking guard) shared a line at the beginning and end of the movie in reverse positions. Very fun. I also liked how Princess Isabel explored the castle and knew short cuts in it.

BECHDEL TEST (Website): I’ll give my take on the Bechdel Test. I’ll also link to the Bechdel Test Website as it is a great tool for looking at movies.

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