It’s hard to count the number of things that went sideways in Jack the Giant Slayer.

Take that terrible CGI introduction that looked a decade out of date at best.

Or the complete lack of any sort of human habitation around the city, other than Jack and his uncle’s house–or really anything at all other than empty fields. Particularly combined how how few people there seemed to be some of the times.

And then what about the lack of any female giants? Although I guess the leader was old enough that they didn’t particularly need to reproduce.

Worst of all perhaps ((Although the ending was pretty weird as well. They really just should have faded to black with storytime…)), what was the bald guardsman’s name? Bald. I didn’t believe it until I looked it up, but yes. They named the bald guardsman Bald. And referred to him by name at least once. I thought I was bad with names, but that’s just impressive.

To be fair though, I thought that a lot of the actors in the film really did a great job. Ewan McGregor embraced the madness of Elmon (although what was with that hairdo?). Stanley Tucci plays an impressively demented power-hungry madman. I couldn’t quite get over Nicholas Hoult as Jack having just coming off him as R the Zombie (particularly with both in hoodies…) ((And then I watched X-Men First Class after coming home. I completely forgot he was in that…)). And Bill Nighy is a awesome. Full stop.

One thing I particularly did like was how they dealt with Eleanor Tomlinson as princess. She wants more than just a princess’s life. Of course it’s what sets the whole plot in motion to begin with, but she ends up more than just a damsel in distress. I was a little puzzled by how she got her armor on that fast (and it didn’t look like it would be particularly effective) but then again, the king’s armor never looked that effective either.

Overall, there are better movies to see. Oz the Great and Powerful for one, despite its faults. It’s still in theaters. But if you’ve already seen it–of if you particularly want to see Ewan McGregor take a crazy role completely seriously–then go ahead and check out Jack the Giant Slayer. It’s kind of a pity that both of Nicholas Hoult’s movies thus far have ended up on the bottom of the list–he actually did a pretty decent job in both cases. So it goes.