MOVIE REVIEW: I Kill Giants
Director: Anders Walter
Writer: Joe Kelly, J.M. Ken Niimura
Starring: Madison Wolfe, Zoe Seldana, Imogen Poots, Sydney Wade and Rory Jackson
Several years after the original comic, Joe Kelly finally decided that it was time to adapt this work into a feature film. Even I’m not sure why, as it doesn’t feel like the kind of work that would benefit from the removal of J. M Ken Niimura’s art style, which was a big part of the book in general. Unfortunately, we see that immediately within the first few scenes, as a film that may have benefitted more from a dull palette is a bit brighter than I would have liked. Considering that the comic was in black and white and a Sin City concept wasn’t done here, I was a bit disappointed. It’s also odd that Joe Kelly would ask a relatively new director in Anders Walter to helm the film, even though it does seem to have worked in some ways, at least. He was able to cover the feel of the book at least, and some scenes felt rather authentic to the source material like when Barbara (Madison Wolfe) and Sophia (Sydney Wade) go walking through the misty woods hunting down giants. I also liked when Taylor’s (Rory Jackson) fist came flying directly at the camera, which made that hit feel all the more potent. Problem is, this script seemed whittled down for political correct concerns, and much of Barbara’s original bite was missing. Madison Wolfe just doesn’t have the amount of sass that a younger Chloe Grace Moretz does, and this film proves it. She tries, but she’s no damn Hit-Girl and without the ability to really use a sharp tongue, I don’t think her character is as strong as it should be. There are two fairly offensive marks that are made by Barbara in the text, and possibly in the wake of the current politically correct landscape that we have now, she can no longer tell counselor Miss Mollé (Zoe Seldana) “…and it’s not because you’re black – I’m not racist” nor can she call the gym teacher a “bull dyke” which I admittedly thought was pretty damn funny. Considering that this comes from the man who wrote most of early Deadpool, these quips would feel right at home for the foul mouthed lass that I read in the comics. Also, it’s important to note that they just threw in diversity wherever they could, even though there was a wonderfully strong black role offered and utilized by the lovely Zoe Seldana, who literally nails the performance in every way possible. She definitely feels like the guidance counselor from the books and then some. It’s clear that the film was an acting vehicle for Seldana post Guardians Of The Galaxy, so it’s good to see her wearing more than green every so often and she proves that she doesn’t need it to play a memorable role. Regardless of this, we see a Chinese teacher for no real reason other than she’s there and some other odd Hollywood diversity tinkering that screams, “we don’t want to get into trouble for too many white people” and Americans too it would seem, as Barbara’s best friend Sophie just happens to be British American now. I’ve no qualms with British American people and spent a good five or six years of my life writing books about their adventures. Nevertheless, it seemed an odd choice that had me scratching my head a little bit although I’m sure it made some critics happy. You know, those ones who could care less about the plot just so long as everyone had a different color of skin and accent than everyone else. It’s a bit silly I think, and wonder why these things matter at all. You’ve got an exceptionally strong black role, by an exceptionally strong black actress, performed remarkably well and so much so that it overshadows everything nearly everything else in the film. While most of the picture focuses on Madison Wolfe, it’s definitely Zoe Seldana that makes the film for me. But before I stop my ranting on this section, I also have to address the oddity of school bully Taylor. In the comic, she’s an overweight butch looking type of girl, but here we have the exact opposite – a very skinny girl that Barbara claims needs to eat more. I have no idea why they did this either, but maybe it is because some plus size women will be offended at the idea of an overweight woman being a bully.
Now aside from the ridiculousness of watered down jokes and politically correct nonsense, let’s really get down to brass tacks – the changing of the overall plot. In the book, Barbara’s mother (Jennifer Ehle) actually does everything that you see her sister Karen (Imogen Poots) perform, because someone has no idea what in the hell they’re doing. While Joe Kelly indeed wrote the script, I feel that in the middle of the night, molemen got into the studio and rewrote major parts of it. No one even bothered to notice and they continued to shoot this molemen influenced script. I wish I could have gone back in time to a point where I could talk to Joe Kelly during the writing of the script and ask him this:
“Alright, Mr. Kelly. The main point of the book that you wrote involves Barbara dealing with her mother’s cancer diagnosis. So why would you ever consider it a good idea to make it about her sister, instead of allowing the viewer to see Barbara explode at her mother and then realize at the last minute that the woman she had been in such confrontation with was actually dying, which would make it so much more of a powerful statement than let’s say, “Hey Barbara, Your mother is still alive and will actually be in the movie after all.” That just doesn’t make any sense and I think it is one of the most ill-advised ideas I’ve seen in an adaptation.
I see why Kelly might have thought that Sophia finding the tape recorder and playing the piece about Covalesky and her mother felt like a good idea, but it wasn’t. To be honest, I didn’t even realize that Barbara’s mother was going to be in the film. In fact, all of the dialogue that Barbara’s mother would have spoken according to her comic counterpart was immediately given to Barbara’s sister Karen, which would have worked had this been a sequel to the original book. (At the end of the comic, Karen was given custody of Barbara, so I thought that this might be some kind of weird sequel). It also took quite a while before we were given a glimpse at school, which is where the comic focused a great deal of time. As much as I liked to see Barbara running around doing magic shit around abandoned train tracks, I was hoping for more of a plot device there.
Quite possibly the biggest blunder here though, was the removal of Barbara’s geekdom. If you watched the credits all of the way through, you would know that Wizards Of The Coast gave the filmmakers the rights to use the Monster Manual and all other D&D related pieces, just as she reads in the comics. But the thing about this film is, they never use them. Aside from the dice, there is no section in the film where she plays D&D as a dungeon master with the rest of the guys, nor is there the part where she goes mad inside the hobby shop and one of the hobbyist says, “this is why girls shouldn’t play D&D.” But I guess that would be gatekeeping, right? Instead, she becomes more of artist type and starts drawing all of these giants, titans and other things. Even though the drawings aren’t bad, I really would have liked it better if as in the comic, she pulled out the D&D Monster Manual in front of her counselor and showed the picture of the giant, rather than a single drawing. It would have made her character more authentic. As you might have guessed, I didn’t really find Madison Wolfe’s portrayal accurate enough and she just wasn’t as much of the geeky tomboy that we found within the pages of the comic. She felt like a girl more interested in witchcraft than D&D, and the whole playing with puppets section also threw me for a loop. I couldn’t see the comic character doing that either. She liked skulls, not puppets. I blame the molemen for this mess, entirely.
In addition to these complaints, I have more. Peter Berg was chosen to do the animated scene regarding the history of the giants instead of J. M. Ken Niimura. It would have been great to see his work on the screen, and the film is all the more weaker because of this absence. After all, it was his work that really made the book what it was, and to not see it there felt sort of tragic. Yes, they mentioned Berg twice in the credits, but he shouldn’t feel too pleased with himself. While his piece was rather decent, it just would have felt better giving proper respect to the man who penciled the original book. Again, it would have made the picture authentic. Starting to notice a pattern here? I am.
I must also address the fact that while we see Taylor beating up Barbara, we never see the huge, detailed fight in the locker room. Yes, I wanted to see the two actresses beat the living crap out of each other as they did in the comic. Barbara wins that fight, and it also shows that she stood up to Taylor, rather than the film’s actual ending where Barbara just puts a plastic doughnut in a skeleton’s mouth and throws it into her locker. Seeing this, Taylor gets pissed and says “she’s gonna kill that bitch” but never does and walks back up the hill, even after she’s destroyed all of Barbara’s traps. There is no fight between the two girls in this film and there needed to be, because again – this showed Barbara standing up to this bully, the old fashioned way. Plus, viewers see Barbara get the hell beaten out of her, but she never gets a chance to return the favor as she does in the book? Where’s that deleted scene, fellas? I mean, to hell with the titan and the large warhammer as well as the additional scene with the giant and the abandoned trains; I just wanted to see the contention between these two women nipped in the bud. That was the only real-world physical battle that the comic held and it was important. Especially when it’s okay to show the girl getting beaten up by the bully and not getting the chance to strike back and defend herself.
Obviously, I have a mound of complaints with the film and that’s because I read the comic an hour before I started watching it, so everything was still fresh in my mind. I was surprised to see a few things, like the extra giant battle that I mentioned around the abandoned trains, and it started to feel a little bit like Shadow Of The Colossus, which is where J. M. Ken Niimura says that he derived much of his interpretation. I think I would have liked to have seen her battle more giants, even if they were in her head. That added to the appeal of the film and could have cut down on the slow parts. Yes, we know that the core story is, the real monster and the overall tragedy behind the film, but it could have had just a little bit more action and fun in the giant bashing department. Though we see more giant traps and more magic in the film, I still think they could have done much more with this. Even so, it does manage to get the story at least half-right, regardless of what the molemen sabotaged after Kelly had finished writing the script. I’m sure that like so many other filmmakers, he didn’t want to write the script like the comic in order to have some weird sort of “alternate universe” vision, but just as I feel with the eventual Infinity War butchering that is about to come – they should have just filmed the damn book.
I Kill Giants would have been easy to film, and as I said, a lot of the other scenes could have featured fighting more types of giants, or even shutting those damn harbingers up. Boy, those things got on my nerves. For a man who wrote a lot of Deadpool, I’m surprised that Kelly wouldn’t have thrown in a scene where Barbara mocked one of them. That would have been a real laugh, in a movie that really did need at least some bit of humor to it. Though, I digress as some might feel very different when it comes to the subject matter and what this book/film means to them. I just wish that they had really stuck to the original script and not made Karen such a large part of the film. If Barbara’s mother had the time to shine in this role as she did in the comic, it would have been brilliant. Much higher than the 76% and 79% that the film reviews show now for it. I Kill Giants had potential, but with so many issues and a near-removal of what made the story so strong to begin with, it nearly falls flat on it’s face and into one of Barbara’s giant traps.
(106 Minutes, Unrated)
7/10