JACK THE GIANT SLAYER (2013)

I enjoyed this movie.  Jack (played by that zombie dude from WARM BODIES) is a simple farm boy who accidentally gets a hold of some magic beans.  Stuff happens and before you can say "Fe-fi-fo-fuck!" the princess, who he has the hots for, gets carried away up into the clouds on the giant beanstalk.  The king is not happy about this and orders his men (and Jack) to climb the towering beanstalk and rescue the princess.  When they get to the top they discover a lost world of giants.  Oh...and two of the guys that go with Jack up the beanstalk are traitorous assholes.

With this kind of story the filmmakers could have gone all kinds of ways from silly as hell to super duper serious, but I think they made the wise choice by going in the middle.  The story itself is serious, but the whole thing kinda has a light feel to it.  I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it!  Honestly I wish the film had been even longer and explored the giant world a little bit more.  Also more screen time for the princess would have been nice.

As it is though, JACK THE GIANT SLAYER is a fun fantasy adventure film with a quick pace, good acting by a talented cast, impressive special effects and an entertaining story.  Recommended, although I am curious what ever happened to the cat?

WOLFEN (1981)

My Latin is pretty rusty, but if my high school memory serves correctly Wolfen is Latin for "yawning my fucking balls off".  When I decided to watch this movie I (incorrectly) figured that it was gonna be about werewolves...and be good.  I was wrong on both accounts.  WOLFEN is the extremely slow-moving story about some mysterious death in NYC.  The police are baffled at how people can end up so mutilated (don't get excited...it's mostly offscreen) with no trace of any weapons used.  Police detective Albert Finney is on the case and after what seemed to be dozens of hours of him walking around, eating cookies and talking to different people he comes to the realization that it's actually a Native American spirit wolf pack.  Unn-huh.

That's right there's zero werewolves involved.  The only wolves involved at all are actual wolves and even then we only get to see them in action at the very end of the movie and even then it's boring as fook.  I've seen more violence in TV commercials than I saw in this movie.  If you enjoy watching Albert Finney walking around talking to people along with different short scenes of "wolf vision" (which is nothing more than crappy looking thermographic wolf POV shots) tossed in at random then this is the movie for you.  If you're looking to be entertained look elsewhere.

If you need me, I'll be in my room watching SILVER BULLET.