Movie Review Written By Amber Garibay
The boy was poor. I could tell at once; the room was barely a spare, where as hers was striking. Each child was tucked neatly in bed, as the story danced by fire light along walls in separate houses. His father was tall, filling the room with structure; his smile was the beam of his baritone. “The Giants made a feast of man,” said he, far too kind to be ominous, “Their flesh was a favorite, until the people became too few, to eat.”
The girl had eyes like starlight; they were twinkling as her mother read the passage in a far away castle. In a bed for a princess, so grand, “There was a great battle, with one last hope for victory,” Her voice was a melody, her face lyrically lined, “King Eric cut the heart out of a Giant slain, molding it with magic and steal. It became the crown on his head, and yes, the magic worked!! It was the heart in the steal, the recognition, that made the Giants kneel to man…
I didn’t think about the possibility of POWER, about the advantage of controlling an army of monsters, as I watched from my seat in IMAX, but I remember feeling the mass of them, the volume of Giant. I was the small of the king, sitting there in the theatre, even through the crown which had at last brought the beast to bay.
It was the pauper who finished the book, father reading to son, “King Eric climbed down the beanstalk, leaving the Giants to roam the ancient lost land of Gantua, the place between earth and sky. He ordered the stalk immediately cut, and it ripped through the earth like a scar. Time healed the land, leaving just enough unsealed to lie to rest a king, worn by years to sleep eternal. He was buried with both; the power, and the seed.
“When are you mortals going to realize that you weren’t meant to live forever…”
I was sad to see the story end; the scene of loving parents, telling the same tale simultaneously. All at the once the children were grown and both parents were absent, killed. The plague took out his father, leaving him an impoverished orphan, indentured to his uncle who could not afford to keep him. I can not tell you how her mother died, but I will say it pained her father to see her reflected. He didn’t like to lose sight of her, in worry. Stubborn, she went anyway, as most princesses tend to do. She was watching a production, a lively stage of colorful banter, until a crowd of men took notice of her smile. That is what first captured Jack, it was the giant of her smile…
He watched near panic, as a hoard of rowdy men began ripping at her gown, far too fresh to be comely. Her skin was the white tale of a deer, the gasp stuck, just to throat, when Jack burst over to his damsel. He was distressed by the size of these manly giants, never fathoming that he would soon meet the legend of his book. You can’t plant seed and power in the same plot, because they impregnate greed. Jack had no foresight, other than to eat fist, which he did before he fell. He stood rightly enough, next to his princess; though he was not right in composure because he did not yet realize who she was.
Jack, played most adoringly by Nicholas Hoult, was just that, absolutely adorable by the way he looked at her. She was royalty before she was crowned; by the way he admired her smile.
She was revealed as Princess Isabelle, removing her cloak upon horse. I was envious from my seat, wanting nothing more than to steal both her beauty, and her youth. Eleanor Tomlinson was cast like a gem upon the screen, her eyes Sapphire brought nearly to Aqua Marine; Her hair was a carrot by lavish, rich to nearly burnt auburn, like a sky on the dim of sunset. Jack was taken, as was I. How could it not be possible to love her at a glance? I wondered about my own face, knowing that there have been many to turn. No one has cared to see my smile on any account that is regular, or maybe I was just missing him, the guy I don’t really like… Perhaps age is a spoil, but then to watch them was to relive it. I remember being loved like that. The way Jack looked at Isabelle that first day.
Ewan McGregor made me forget! Hot damn that man is SEXY!!! I wanted to be the blade he stuck playfully out at Jack who had forgotten to bow for his lady, just because I knew he would take it back in. I was biting my lip at the flirtation of his character, deciding on the spot that knightly men in silver would be my new fetish and YES… I would mount him. No disrespect to his wife (married over 13 years? I ran out of fingers), and three children. Celebrities get to be my fantasy because they aren’t real people. That is my disclaimer for being a sexist.
That is how it was back then, and the poor princess would be denied Jack’s love, (yes, they fall in love) because she was promised to another by her father’s choice. Women did not choose who they mounted back then, perhaps I am more fortunate than she, after all. I suddenly regretted feeling jealous of his love. She plead her case to the King, imploring him. The man she was pledged to marry was twice her age, and he cared nothing for her, nor she for him. I normally like Stanley Tucci, who played the fiancé Roderick, and future ruler of the land. I despised him quite readily as the villain he was in the flick, forgetting that I had seen him elsewhere, though my mind kept trying to place him in other films. That is the danger of being memorable which he is and was.
I have more than gratitude to the makers, the biggest that you can pay to the debt of a classic remastered. The adaptation was graceful, meandering back to the original telling, through the retelling, each generation until the crown came to rest inside glass, forever sealing the classic, as the first, by the binds of public transparency.
Thank You for this Film. I give it a RAVE.
Much Love and Many Blessings,
Amber Garibay
