Okay, can we talk about how horrifically underwhelmed I am by this movie? If I have to sit through this trailer again in front of a genre movie I actually want to see, I’m going to scream. It’s 2013, and the gritty fairytale reboot thing isn’t just tired, it’s exhausted. At this point in the game, it’s not okay to just turn a fairy tale into an action movie. There has to be a twist. Look at Once Upon A Time. None of those characters is just what we know from a fairy tale. Snow White and the Hunstman wasn’t great, but at least it wasn’t the exact same story over again. Even freaking Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters had a new take on an old story. This is just Jack and the Beanstalk writ large, and although I’m sure the trailer’s an accurate representation of the movie, nothing about it makes me want to go shell out ten to fifteen bucks to see it. I don’t think even Ewan MacGregor can save this mess.
This was supposed to come out last summer; in fact, MadameAce did a review of the trailer back when it was called Jack the Giant Killer. I don’t know which trailer I like better. The older one looks like a better movie, at least, with fewer terrible sight gags and puns, where the newer one gives Miss Kidnapped Princess a little agency. I really can’t pick, but I still probably wouldn’t see either.
I know genderbending isn’t always the answer, but you know what would have made this movie better? A female Jack.
Seriously, it could be short for Jacqueline or something, and she could be the original Jack’s daughter… or something. There’s your twist on the old tale. Imagine everything about this trailer staying the same, except there’s a spirited young action heroine instead. Ten times awesomer, no? We proved to Hollywood last year with movies like The Hunger Games that a female-led film doesn’t mean a wasted investment. I wish they’d run with that.
More to the point, it’s kind of depressing that Nicholas Hoult is hotter as a zombie than as a fairy tale hero; seriously, what’s with Jack’s weird hair?
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