Member review

Fee, Fi, Foe, Fum. Ask not whence the thunder comes. Ask not where the herds have gone, nor why the birds have seized their song. When coming home don't take too long, for monsters roam in Albion.

Legend tells of three monks who used magical beans to sprout giant beanstalks into the sky, for this is as they believed, the way to heaven. But instead of finding heaven, they found a land between heaven and earth – Garagantua, home of a fearsome race of Giants. So it was that there the monks met their fate. Now that the Giants had a bridge to earth they used it to invade and pillaged villages, raided towns and destroyed kingdoms. They were unstoppable until some monks took the heart of a Giant, melted it down with magic and forged it into a crown – whoever was to wear this crown would have the power to rule the Giant race. King Eric the Great took this crown and with it sent back the Giant race from whence they came and then severed their bridge to earth by cutting down the beanstalk. When he died, King Eric the Great was laid to rest with the crown and the remaining beanstalk seeds and the Giant race passed into legend, or so it would seem….

Many years have passed in Albion and the legend of King Eric the Great has passed through the generations and is told as a folk tale. The legend of King Eric the Great is nothing more than that – a legend - until one day when a young farm boy called Jack (Nicholas Hoult) sets out to market to sell the farms horse and cart. Whilst he is there he saves a girl from being harassed by a group of thugs, it is only when the Kings Guardians arrive to escort her that he realises who she is – she is the Princess. After this, Jack meets a monk who offers him a bag of magic beans for his horse, telling him that if he delivered these beans to another monk he would be paid ten copper for them. The Monk also gives Jack a warning – don’t let the beans become wet!

After returning home with just a handful of beans, Jack gets into a lot of trouble with his uncle who is so angry with him that he swipes the beans from Jack’s hands onto the floor, although unbeknown to Jack one bean falls under the floorboard. Later that stormy night, a young girl comes to Jack’s house looking for some shelter from the rain; this girl is Princess Isabelle (Eleanor Tomlinson). But the rain seeps through the house and reaches the bean under the floorboards and out of nowhere a giant beanstalk shoots through the house taking it skywards with Jack and Princess Isabelle inside. Only Jack manages to escape by falling down the beanstalk leaving Princess Isabelle marooned at the top of the beanstalk. The King (Ian McShane) orders Elmont (Ewan McGregor) and his best team of Guardians to rescue the Princess. Roderick (Stanley Tucci) who is Isabelle’s husband to be from an arranged marriage volunteers to accompany them, along with Jack.

Once the company climb to the top of the beanstalk, they find Garagantua – home of the Giants. But they soon find out that Roderick has the crown of King Eric and plans to lead an invasion of Giants onto Earth. The company must recue Princess Isabelle and cut down the beanstalk before any Giants find their way down the beanstalk.

I was quite excited about this film and I walked in hoping it would be good and be more of a dark film than a kids film and it lived up to my hopes. This film is quite tame due to it being a family film but is still a dark adaptation of the classic fairy tale. The story is really entertaining and tells it as if it actually happened. There is a brilliant cast including Nicholas Hoult, Ian McShane, Ewan McGregor, Bill Nighy and even a cameo appearance by Warwick Davies! My favourite actor had to be Ewan McGregor and his character, I felt, was the underrated hero of the film. I enjoyed this film and only wished that the battle scenes could have been bigger and that it had focussed a bit more on Elmont, because the film emphasises a lot on Jack’s heroic actions but not so much on Elmont’s. But these are merely minor points which do not detract from this film because overall I think it is good. 4 stars.