Jack The Giant Slayer - Jack the... guy who kind of hangs out in the presence of giants

I will start by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed this film. Yes, it's mainly meant for kids, but, if you generally like fairytales, or can simply appreciate films where you have to suspend your disbelief to the maximum, then you'll probably be able to sit through this.

However, and this is my main (and minor) gripe with this film: Jack doesn't do much `giant slaying.' I was expecting to pick up some sort of `magic axe' at any moment and open up a can of whoop-ass of those big-footed bullies. As it happens, he's more just there when the action takes place, rather than actually `slaying' any giants.

But, ignoring my beef with the title, the rest of the film is fun. I've heard people criticise it for being `cliché-riddled.' And, yes, they're probably right. But then it's based on a children's fairytale, so...er... what are you expecting, Shakespeare? Other gripes include the giants themselves - they're all computer-generated and some people seem to want `real' giants (or at least real people playing the giants). Again, I didn't mind this - it was a fairytale, so it was supposed to look a little unreal in my opinion.

All the characters play their parts well. The baddies are bad and the goodies are good. The only person I really didn't think did that much was the princess, who's there simply because every fairytale needs one. I read online that the actress who played her `based her performance on Ripley from Aliens.' If she did... then that severely went over my head!

Yes, this film will always have one or two flaws and there will be those who take delight in picking it apart because of them. However, I think the good outweighs the bad. It's a 12 certificate in the UK and I can see why - despite much of the killing and `gore' taking place when the camera (conveniently) cuts away, the giants do a lot more `slaying' than Jack can ever get round to. Some younger viewers may not like that. But then I'm old and horrible, so I loved it.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that