Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story ·

12 Jul 2024, 00:00

This Jim Henson Co. production of "Jack and the Beanstalk" certainly isn't a lighthearted Muppet-like take on the familiar fairy tale. Instead, director Brian Henson, who also co-wrote the screenplay, delivers a revisionist version that can be grimmer than Grimm.

This Jim Henson Co. production of “Jack and the Beanstalk” certainly isn’t a lighthearted Muppet-like take on the familiar fairy tale. Instead, director Brian Henson, who also co-wrote the screenplay, delivers a revisionist version that can be grimmer than Grimm. Part f/x fantasy, part political parable, part psychological drama, CBS mini is definitely targeted to adults, although even given that it’s a bit too doleful for its own good. But along with its genuinely strong production values, the film does have a ruminative thoughtfulness that intrigues.

Set primarily in contemporary England, Matthew Modine plays Jack Robinson, heir to an enormous longstanding family fortune. His father died around the age of 40, as did his father before him, and so on and so on. Approaching that age, Jack is a loner who dodges the many women seeking his company, not wanting to bring into the world a child who seems destined, like him, to grow up fatherless. His closest companion is his business partner Siggy (Jon Voight), a calculating European (what is that accent, Mr. Voight?) who was placed in the role of Jack’s protector after his father’s death.

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The connection between this Jack and the more famous fairy tale one begins to be unearthed when giant bones are discovered near the family’s English castle, which Siggy is having converted into a themed casino. At the same time, a mysterious woman named Ondine (Mia Sara) begins showing up where she doesn’t belong, dropping hints to Jack that the source of his family’s wealth, going back 15 generations, is a deep, dark secret.

It doesn’t unfold very convincingly — even Vanessa Redgrave can’t do much with the role of an exposition-spouting matriarch — but even-tually the connections become clear. The tale of “Jack and the Beanstalk,” the one we all know of an adventurous youth, a few magic beans and an Englishman-sniffing giant, turns out to be only one side of the story — a completely distorted one. In “Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story,” Jack wasn’t the hero but the villain, and the giant a victim of his greed. It’s up to our contemporary Jack to set things straight and end his family curse, and the first night ends with a new beanstalk sprouting and a more complicated tale emerging. By the time this conceit is fully laid out, the rest is mostly predictable.

The story certainly perks up whenever special effects take over. The beanstalk is nicely done, especially the image of Modine sleeping in a pod and chewing on a pea for breakfast. The land of the giant Thunderdell, played by co-writer Bill Barretta, is fairly well realized, although it’s not at all startling, maybe because we’ve become so used to fantastical effects.

The pic does take itself too seriously, making an effort at a political parable about colonialism and investing just about everyone with a guilty conscience. Of course, it always helps when one of those everyones is Richard Attenborough, who plays a wise giant trying to effect justice. It’s certainly a smart movie, but it could use a lot more of the talking goose with an attitude to counteract its general humorlessness.

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