Jack the Giant Slayer 2013

Critics score:
52 / 100

Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes

Mary F. Pols, TIME Magazine: The movie feels so much like a video game that your fingers instinctively itch to do something, though a Jack video game isn't one we'd really want to play. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: Simply in terms of efficient storytelling, clear logistics and consistent viewer engagement, Jack is markedly superior to the recent "Hobbit." Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: This finally is just a digitally souped-up, one-dimensional take on "Jack and the Beanstalk," capped by the kind of interminable blowout that makes many big-studio entertainments feel as long as the last Oscars. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: Jack's problem is that he's a commoner, but the movie's problem is that its script is commoner still, an enchantment-free pretext for animated action, straight-ahead storytelling and ersatz romance. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: There's more to this Jack and the Beanstalk adaptation than Fee-fi-fo-fum. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: It's stuck in a big-budget-movie middle ground - not quite thrilling enough to be an action movie, not quite funny enough for a comedy - and, once you've pondered the impressive size of the beanstalk, there's not much else there. Read more

Tasha Robinson, AV Club: The film spends a great deal of its focus on fights that stretch out to Lord Of The Rings length, but without LOTR-level effects or panache. Read more

Randy Cordova, Arizona Republic: The film is like a big Disneyland ride, full of wonder and myth. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: ''Jack the Giant Slayer'' ends up being smart, thrilling and a whole lot of fun. Read more

Tom Russo, Boston Globe: If you thought the tale ended when Jack clambered back down from the skies, then you haven't given it as much thought as Singer. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: By the time the giants have descended the beanstalk and laid siege to the king's castle, and the boiling oil comes out with the flaming arrows and the flying flaming trees, it's like: Enough already. Read more

Tom Charity, CNN.com: Jack the Giant Slayer is slight, but consistently amusing. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Not awful, not wonderful, Jack the Giant Slayer is a midrange fairy tale epic that's a lot more ho-hum than fee-fi-fo-fum. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: "Jack the Giant Slayer" seems more likely to be "Jack the Giant Bomb." Read more

Cary Darling, Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com: Unlike Peter Jackson with the overstuffed The Hobbit,[director Bryan]Singer shies away from the epic and settles for entertaining. Sometimes that's more than enough. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: The director, Bryan Singer, works more anonymously here than he did in the X-Men films. Jack the Giant Slayer feels like it could have been made by anyone. Read more

Jordan Hoffman, Film.com: [M]ay get you habitually reaching for your PS3 controller to jab the cut-scene skipping "X" button Read more

Wesley Morris, Grantland: Forget that Giant Slayer feels photocopied and is entirely unnecessary. It's just not exciting. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: There may never have been a Jack tale that delivered so little pleasure for so many dollars as what we have here. Read more

Randy Myers, San Jose Mercury News: This grotesque world is imaginatively, magically rendered with heavy stone architecture and a dreary lack of adornment. It's such an intriguing place that you wouldn't mind staying a bit longer. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: "Jack the Giant Slayer" is the kind of old-fashioned, entertaining fantasy-adventure you once saw regularly in theaters. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: The script sets up the situation and characters nicely, and the actors are terrific. Read more

Ian Buckwalter, NPR: At its heart, the film is just a simple fairy tale, an epic reduced to an engaging adventure of a bedtime story. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: Big and loud and so bland it kinda feels like we've been sold a bill of goods. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: This digitally tricked-out fairy tale makes for a reasonably engaging kids' fantasy, but at best we're talking about a junior varsity "Lord of the Rings." Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Singer's take on ye olde yarne has wit about it, and it certainly looks good. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: It's fast paced, energetic, and enormously likeable. Read more

Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times: 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. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Jack the Giant Slayer proves the axiom "If you can't make it good, make it 3D." Read more

Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle: What's the point of making a movie with a 9-year-old boy's sensibility, then including just enough violence to garner a PG-13 rating? Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: It feels like a film made by a committee, for a demographic rather than an audience. It's a tale full of sound and fury (and flying bodies) signifying nothing. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: While it's fine for a director to explore his childhood inspirations, you hope he would bring something a bit more personal to it. Read more

Linda Barnard, Toronto Star: Although it often feels there's more of mechanics than the muse keeping Jack the Giant Slayer going, this sprightly fairy tale reworking is full of beans, smartly written and packs plenty of fun. Read more

Nigel Floyd, Time Out: A mash-up of old-school heroism, pantomime villainy, starstruck lovers and post-'Shrek' archness, it's more exhausting than exhilarating. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: Fee-fi-fo-fum, this fairy-tale retread is pretty dumb. Read more

Scott Foundas, Village Voice: Singer evokes another era of fantasy filmmaking when the illusions before our eyes were created in an artist's studio rather than a computer lab. It's more Jason and the Argonauts than Shia and the Transformers. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: It's fast, rousing, and blessedly brief - under two hours instead of, say, nine in three bladder-straining installments. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: "Jack" seems designed to appeal to a very narrow, and possibly illusory, demographic: the mature moppet. Read more