In short: Jack the Giant Slayer (2013)

Unless he’s going the “Superman is Jesus” route, you can usually trust in Bryan Singer to turn out a good to great bit of mainstream Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking. Personally, I hold him responsible for the fact that most of Fox’s X-Men films are actually worth watching, and actually seem to get what the better parts of the comics are thematically about.

Jack isn’t really up there with Days of Future Past, though. It’s still a fun bit of spectacle, with quite a few mildly rousing scenes of anti-giant violence, a usually fun to watch cast and assured pacing. This isn’t one of those big loud Hollywood movies that take their dear time actually starting (I’m looking at you, Suicide Squad’s never ending character introductions), either. Singer knows the hoary adventure chestnut he wants to tell, he knows which elements he needs to tell it, and he’s not going to bore his audience with stuff that doesn’t belong in it.

Still, there are some puzzling directorial choices here: why is the short exposition in form of a fairy tale shown as a bit of ass-ugly digital animation that looks as if they’d hired a handful of interns to cook something up in a weekend? Why does semi-fairy tale Olde Englande seem to be more inspired by Monty Python than fairy tales (or old England, for that matter)? What’s up with the curious tonal shifts between all ages fantasy adventure and moments of what surely must be conscious grittiness, seeing as they don’t have any thematic meaning? This certainly isn’t a film that’s trying to compare the idealistic ideas of adventure of its two young main characters with an uglier truth, nor one that’s trying to argue something about the power of the imagination trumping brutal reality, so I can see much reason for these tonal problems beyond them being the dreaded artefacts of earlier script versions that nobody bothered to get rid of. Also, why hire Stanley Tucci (whom I usually adore) of all people as a villain instead of someone who can do a proper Basil Rathbone by virtue of being British and not having to spend so much of his acting energy on his fake accent?

Again, this doesn’t mean Jack the Giant Slayer isn’t big loud fun. I certainly enjoyed my two hours with it, and am certainly not averse to watching it again in a couple of years. It’s just that Singer usually can do more working in the space Jack belongs to.

Three Films Make A Post: Things happen that have never been seen by human beings. The blood flows like vintage wine.

And The Crows Will Dig Your Grave aka Los Buitres cavaran tu fosa (1972): Despite its being graced with an awesome title, routine Spanish Western director Juan Bosch's film is a wee bit too generic to warrant me writing anything long about it. It's the usual mess of people (Craig Hill, Angel Aranda and Fernando Sancho among them) of variable nastiness doing nasty things to each other for monetary reasons - not much vengeance going around here - with some light political allegory thrown in. While I've seen it all before, I can't really complain about Bosch's execution of the story: the cruelty is cruel, the action is tight, the dialogue scenes have a certain amount of bite. Add decent acting by people with excellent facial hair and a generic yet fine soundtrack by Bruno Nicolai, and you get a Spaghetti (Paella?) Western that might be totally forgettable, but is also pretty entertaining.

My Horse, My Gun, Your Widow (1972): Again directed by Bosch, again made in 1972 (and still not the last film the director shot in that year), again a Spaghetti Western, again featuring Craig Hill, a Bruno Nicolai soundtrack and an awesome title. Alas, I wasn't as happy with this one, for this is one of those dreaded "comedic" films that suffer from not being funny at all. There are of course some good Spaghetti Western comedies, but those films usually know if there in it for the jokes, want to be parodies of the genre their working in, or hide more complex things behind their humour. My Horse etc doesn't seem to have much of a plan at all, and ends up being one of those films that are just kind of there without ever amounting to much.

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011): After the rather disappointing Thor, Joe Johnston (the guy responsible for the horrible Wolfman remake) of all people pulls the Marvel superhero films out of the druthers again with what is as fine a piece of blockbuster cinema as you're likely to encounter. The film not only gets the core of the character it is about right, but also realizes which elements of the original's serial/pulp origins will work under these particular circumstances and which won't, and then proceeds to dial up the useful elements to awesome. Add that the film has an actual heart, and find me a very happy man.

 

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