Taking a new spin on a familiar childhood tale has been a recent trend in Hollywood – and the latest film to do so is Jack the Giant Slayer. Adapting and expanding the children’s stories Jack and the Beanstalk and Jack the Giant Killer, director Brian Singer creates an entertaining yet unexceptional spin on the fairytale.

The film follows the lead couple – Jack (Nicholas Hoult), a poor farm boy, and Isabelle (Eleanor Tomlinson), princess of the kingdom. Predictably, Isabelle’s father, the king (Ian McShane) is forcing her to marry Roderick (Stanley Tucci), one of the king’s chief advisers, and Isabelle is highly protestant and claims she wants adventure and to marry for love.

The film also explains the legend that happened many years previously in the kingdom: Giants invaded Earth by coming down on a beanstalk that connected Earth and the heavens, and the only way they were defeated was from King Erik’s magical crown, which has the power to control the giants. King Erik sent the giants back to the heavens and the only relics left were some magical beans to re-grow the beanstalk and the crown.

The audience discovers early on that Roderick stole the magical beans and King Erik’s crown from his tomb to use for his own power gain. To prevent the kingdom being invaded by giants, an unsuspecting monk broke into the palace and stole the mythical, magical beans from Roderick for safe keeping. Once Roderick closes the gates to the city to stop and find his thief, the monk meets Jack and gives the beans to him in reluctant exchange for his horse – and the monk attempts to escape.

Jack returns home with the beans. That night in a bad rainstorm, Isabelle runs away from the castle, gets lost, and sees the light at Jack’s house and finds shelter there. Jack accidentally drops the magical beans – one falls under a floorboard and lands in the dirt, and due to the rain, the bean gets wet and the beanstalk immediately starts to grow. Jack’s house gets literally caught in the beanstalk, with Isabelle inside, and she is carried up to the top of the beanstalk while Jack predictably manages to fall and get separated from Isabelle. The king sets up a rescue team for Isabelle, and in such, the rescue team has to find Isabelle without managing to get caught up with giants who feast on humans – and to prevent all Hell from breaking loose on the land.

While the tone of the title alludes to an overly epic and rather cheesy stigma, Jack the Giant Slayer was surprisingly more entertaining than I anticipated. The characters develop nicely in the first third, bits of humor throughout were an added bonus, and the acting was decent. The two younger actors in leading roles surrounded by a seasoned supporting cast (Ewan McGregor and Tucci especially take the cake) created a nice balance, and each of the actors played off each other nicely. I was left a little confused with a few CGI decisions (i.e., why is there a Siamese giant?), but if you want to witness well-done CGI battles with mythical creatures, Jack the Giant Slayer is a film to see. The voice acting for giants was well-done as well, although they did sound like Orcs from Lord of the Rings (I was half-expecting to hear “meat’s back on the menu, boys!”).

The morphing of two tales – Jack and the Beanstalk and Jack the Giant Killer – kept many familiar plot points, but screenwriters Darren Lemke and Christopher McQuarrie also added in their own creativity to keep the audience’s curiosity. The film is better than what the trailers foreshadowed, but there wasn’t any “wow” factor overall to keep it memorable years from now. The 3D aspect was fun, but didn’t do much to enhance the CGI or plot.

Although Jack the Giant Slayer was more entertaining than I anticipated, it’s still an unremarkable and mediocre film overall. It’s worth seeing in theaters if it’s a rainy day and there’s not much else to do, but otherwise, I’d wait for Redbox or Netflix.

Grade: C+

Rated: PG-13 (for intense scenes of fantasy action violence, some frightening images and brief language)

Jack the Giant Slayer opens in theaters on March 1, 2013.