It is here that we meet the giants themselves (including their leader, a two-headed monstrosity mo-capped and voiced by Bill Nighy), rendered in the not-quite-real CG style of the creatures from I Am Legend, giving some of their sequences the feel of the narrative bits from a videogame.

This treacherous climb is, ironically, where the film finds its footing, mixing comedy and action with a confidence the set-up sorely lacks. Alas, the sudden rainstorm that causes the princess (conveniently) to take shelter at Jack’s place also works its magic on the beans, carrying Isabelle to the land of the giants.Īnswering the hero’s call to action, Jack heads up the beanstalk to save his beloved, accompanied by the king’s champion (a dashing Ewan McGregor, enjoying himself enormously) and Isabelle’s slippery betrothed (Stanley Tucci). Neither does the fudged storytelling of the establishing scenes, in which Jack (Nicholas Hoult) and Isabelle (Eleanor Tomlinson) meet at the market, where Jack trades his horse for some ‘magic’ beans which, he is told, Gremlins-style, not to get wet. Given that the film was pushed back nine months to allow more time for special effects work, this deliberately dodgy sequence does not bode well for the rest of the movie. The opening scenes strike an uncertain tone, using deliberately unfinished computer animation to describe, in bedtime story form, the time when giants roamed the Earth, connected to their lofty homeland by humongous beanstalks, until Erik The Great (or ‘Erik The Terrible’, as the giants know him) severed the link, banishing them to legend. Now, Bryan Singer has thrown his Bad Hat Harry Productions into the ring, grinding elements of Arthurian, Viking and other popular versions of the ‘Jack The Giant Killer’ (the film’s original title) and ‘Jack And The Beanstalk’ tales into a galumphing 3D adventure, which eschews cynical, samizdat demographic engineering in favour of rollicking adventure. Aim light-ish, as in Mirror Mirror and Oz The Great And Powerful, and you might entice the Alice In Wonderland crowd go toward the dark side (Snow White & The Huntsman, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters), and you might just get the Twihards.

Once upon a time, Hollywood decided that Greek myths and Grimm folk tales, being out of copyright and widely known, would make ideal source material for big-budget films, full of heroic teens and 3D razzle-dazzle.

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