Bryan Singer: Best director; Take 4

Bryan Singer, director of X-Men and Superman Returns, took some time out to visit the land of the giants in Jack the Giant Slayer (2013) before getting back to his X-Men sequel. In a new epic take on the Jack and the bean stalk tail, he directs Nicholas Hault as Jack, a farmhand who must rescue a princess (Eleanor Tomlinson) from the evil giants after unwittingly opening a gateway to their land in the clouds. An ancient war is rekindled, as the towering titans are once again roaming the earth and seek to reclaim the land they lost long ago. Jack sets off on an adventure with the kings guards (Ewan McGregor as Elmont, Stanley Tucci as Roderick and Eddie Marson as Crawe) to save his people and rescue the princess, summoning bravery to drive out the invading giants.

Singer caught the bug to do something involving fantasy adventure when he watched the shooting of King Kong with Peter Jackson. It was a chance for him to do something completely different from his previous repertoire. In an interview he said his inspiration for the dark tone of the film came from ‘films like Jurassic Park and Raiders of the Lost Ark, mixing the acting style of Princess Bride with violence level of Indiana jones and the kind of adventurous visuals of a Ray Harryhausen picture’. Singer delivers a clever spin on a familiar fairy tale, full of carnage and mayhem with sly humour. He incorporates real life characters with 25 foot tall CG giants but it doesn’t feel like you’re walking into a big CG animated world, it feel like it’s happening in the real world and is entirely plausible that one might ascend a giant bean stalk into a sky of mythical giants. Perhaps this is why it was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Director, a Key Art Award for Best Display and Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Visual Effects.

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