I nearly gave up after the first five excruciating minutes but either it improved ever so slightly or I became numb to its crappiness as I managed to stick with it. The film is a post modern take on classic fairytales, the problem is that it is so poorly realised and Shrek got there years earlier. The film has an air of the ‘80s family fantasy film which is no doubt helped by the fact it stars an abundance of down on their luck ‘80s actors who were desperate for the work. The film also references movies such as Labyrinth and Princess Bride which sounds good in theory as they are classic films but Jack and the Beanstalk can never compete meaning you just wish you’d re-watched a Henson movie instead of wasting your time here.

The jokes are bad and laboured, the special effects are poor, all of the characters are irritating and the quest falls flat because you don’t care if they make it or not (the giant doesn’t even appear until the final third making him an ineffectual antagonist, even if he is voiced by James Earl Jones).