Jack the Giant Slayer (2013)

Fairy tales are always ripe for reinterpretation, and director Bryan Singer (“X-Men”) does that and openly plays with the notion of scrambling legends in “Jack the Giant Slayer.” 

That’s the new film about the beanstalk kid with the piss-poor mom, the cow, and the beans, all busied up with one giant eye (sorry) on “Lord of the Rings” and the Hollywood obsession of turning every adventure story into a war epic. 

Nicholas Holt is Jack, who lives with his uncle and stupidly trades a horse (changes!) for magic beans which lead him and a princess (Elanor Tomlinson) to the land of giants. Rescues by Jack abound because even now the princess still must be helpless. Pfft. P.S. No golden eggs here. 

“Jack” endured a tortuous production and a recent title change, and the troubles show: The giants are dodgy CGI creatures passable 10 years ago. Ewan McGregor as a valiant hero is a hoot, and Stanley Tucci as the villain has fun with bad teeth. 

But two game actors and the often witty dialogue can’t keep this “Giant” from getting cut off at the knees. Also, bless his heart, but I bet Holt has never even visited a farm. C+

The Impossible (2012)

“The Impossible” follows a family dragged low by one of history’s greatest disasters: The 2004 tsunami that killed 300,000 people in Southeast Asia. Director Juan Bayona and Sergio Sánchez (both of  “Orphanage”) make this true story horrifying real as they place us inside the deadly wave with the characters as they fight not to be drowned, crushed, or impaled. 

Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts -– both fantastic -- head the wealthy Brit family and when disaster hits, parents are separated. Mom with an older boy, dad with two younger sons. Mom is sickeningly wounded. Dad is sickeningly worried. Bayona and Sánchez make their ordeal personal, like the family swept up in Wouk’s “Winds of War.” 

But wait. The real family in this tragedy was Spanish -- not WASP -- and every major character we follow in this tragedy is WASP. The indigenous locals? Side characters. Helpers. Magic negroes, to be bluntly nasty. 

Great as this film is, these diversions choke like a swallowed stone. The movie studio trusted a Spanish team behind the camera, but not in front. Yes, movies (“Argo”) constantly shuffle ethnicities, but here with so many nonwhites killed, getting past that hump is … impossible. B

Haywire (2012)

Steven Soderbergh’s “Haywire” exists for one reason: To show mixed-martial arts fighter Gina Carano kick the snot out of such Hollywood heartthrobs as Channing Tatum, Michael Fassbender, and Ewan McGregor. She does this exceedingly well. The fight scenes are fast, feel brazenly real, and contain none of the CGI’d wirework gunk that turns most female vigilante flicks into fetishized trash. I’m looking at you, “Underworld.” When Tatum pummels Carano in the opening scene, the sight is shocking. Carrano gives back, brutally. Alas, the action is all that’s worth noting as the story (by Lem Dobbs, who wrote Soderbergh’s “Limey”) is a merry-go-round of betrayals so outlandishly unbelievable and confusing, I gave up tracking details and dialogue. Speaking of, and I pray I never meet Carano, but her delivery is tepid, with at least half her words red-flagged as post- production re-recording. She has a tough screen presence, but so much of this film is awkward talk that it feels long at 93 minutes. In a sequel, Carano must fight Liam Neeson. Fact. B-

Trainspotting (1996)

Danny Boyle’s “Trainspotting” is an adrenaline shot of cinematic greatness about heroin addicts that dares show the quick pleasure of shooting up. Bob Dole balked. Idiot. No “ABC School Special” has ever shown an addict hand-fishing for a dropped stash in a shit-filled toilet, or a guy waking up slathered in diarrhea after losing his bowels, or an infant dying from neglect. This tale of poor Scots who see their parents struggling to earn a pound and figure why not shoot up, is the real deal writ large and depraved. It’s sickly fascinating to watch, a stoned mad-hatter film akin to “Clockwork Orange” or “Romper Stomper,” but to live it? No. Ewan McGregor is a guy who wants heroin over the big house, bigger TV, fancy car, and a job, and Boyle, writer John Hodge (taking on Irvine Welsh’s book) charge those commodities as no better than a shot of white liquid. Only an idiot, or a conservative, would see the finale as happy when a druggie says life will be OK with a wad of money. In a film full of sick jokes, it’s the most repugnant laugh of all. That said, this pales next to 2000’s stellar “Requiem for a Dream.” A

Beginners (2011) and I Love You Phillip Morris (2010)

Ewan McGregor’s career never took off the way it should have: “Trainspotting” and “Moulin Rouge!” should have put him in orbit, but those “Star Wars” prequels – with McGregor lost amid CGI overload – may have spoiled Hollywood on him, or, actually, him on Hollywood. But I just caught two films with the Scotsman as the co-lead. By sheer coincidence, they both deal with gay issues – is McGregor going niche? – that would send bigot GOPers planning constitutional bans.

The real-life premise of Mike Mills film “Beginners”: Just after his mother died of cancer, his 75-year-old father came out, leaping head first into California’s gay culture before dying himself of cancer. Here, Mike is dubbed Owen and played by McGregor. Christopher Plummer is the dad. The film is moody, artsy and contains short diagrams where, say, multiplying coins equate growing cancer. It focuses on Owen recalling his emotionally cold childhood and then his 38-year-old self as he falls for a French actress (Melanie Laurent of “Inglorious Basterds”). Owen’s woes are not as compelling as daddy Plummer, the latter giving a shining performance as a man who seemingly has found the secrets to all of life’s happiness just as the ax falls. There’s anger missing here. Isn’t Owen allowed to be pissed? Dad was never home, out having dalliances. Even if dad was with women, that has to create a lasting deficit. More so, one wonders how Owen and his gal eat and pay rent, as he is a failure on the job and she never seems to work. A dog with subtitled dialogue is way too cute a gimmick. B

McGregor is the Phillip Morris of “I Love You Phillip Morris” which has nothing to do with the cigarette maker, but instead focuses on serial con artist Steven Jay Russell (Jim Carrey). Russell starts out as a married father in Virginia Beach and ends up in prison for credit card fraud, embezzlement, theft, malpractice and numerous prison breaks, one by faking his own death. It’s in prison where Russell meets Morris, and so, yes, this is a Jim Carrey rom-com-drama … behind bars, way queer, and based on a true story. Directors/writers Glenn Ficarra and John Requa tell us so three times in the credits. “Morris” is funny at the start, but revels in mincing gay stereotypes and feels wildly contradictory, and overly silly. Carey’s “Liar, Liar” smirk made me wonder how anyone could take him seriously. He steam rolls McGregor, who misplays as a fragile daisy. Stabs at drama – an AIDS death – are forced and unearned. Critics loved this, a con all its own. C+

Incendiary (2008)

“Incendiary” is the most insulting, exploitive film I’ve seen to tackle Islamic terrorism and mass death. It’s an awkward, miserable watch barely saved by Michelle Williams’ performance, which itself sinks to hysterical wailing. Williams plays a London mom, devoted to her child, but unhappily married to a bomb squad technician. At a bar one night, she meets a rich (!) investigative reporter (Ewan McGregor) who takes her home. They screw. When he comes to her place days later, they do it again. During, she watches the telly as her boy and hubby die in a stadium bombing. The silly title is partial literal as mom starts a diary – get it? – as if it were written to Bin Laden. “Incendiary” sinks into its own asshole with hubby’s boss announcing his love to the destroyed woman, McGregor stalking her with notepads, government conspiracies, and all sorts of nonsense too ridiculous to repeat. Every other minute, the film becomes more sensationalistic and sickly insipid. The most grievous sin: A happy ending that made me sneer. D

The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)

“The Men Who Stare at Goats” is a spineless stab at the war satire genre -- war is irrational, why try and rationalize it? -- created by “Catch 22” (book) and “M*A*S*H” (film). “Men” skips bloodshed, offering a high (literal) concept story – the use of mind-control warfare and psychic drugs against the enemy.

Ewan McGregor is reporter Bob Wilton who flees an imploded marriage to Kuwait circa 2004. Bob’s hope: Write an epic story, become famous and win the missus back. His ticket is Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a Special Forces operator who claims he can burst clouds and kill goats with his mind. As Bob and Lyn drive (alone) into Iraq, they meet kidnappers, IEDs, Kevin Spacey and a secret base.

The best satires give us a hook -– people to care about, a maddening danger, or an edge, they also allow us characters unaware they are the butt of a joke. (Everyone is dead serious in "Dr. Strangelove," after all. Classic.) You can see the actors smirking here. This amounts to a piss-poor Coens knockoff with Clooney as the heroic idiot, Jeff Bridges rehashing Lebowski, and Spacey going gaga for Twizzlers. “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” had more to say about war. (Clooney pal Grant Heslov directed, not the Coens. Or Kubrick.)

Every joke is a near-decade late: If you thought LSD gags died out with Timothy Leary, you’d be wrong. As for the McGregor/Jedi jokes, who wants to recall those prequel films? D+

The Ghost Writer (2010)

Let’s me say it upfront: Roman Polanski is an snake bastard. The guy should be in prison, not making films. But, damn it, he is one gifted filmmaker. His latest movie is “The Ghost Writer,” a tense thriller that packs a political grenade inside a cache of classic movie lying, cheating, double crosses and swindling. It recalls those great thrillers from when I was a babe, such as “The Conversation.” It also maybe a very dark comedy/satire ala "The Manchurian Candidate."

Ewan McGregor plays the never-named title character, a novelist on the skids who takes a job as the second ghost writer of the in-the-works autobiography of one Adam Lang, former Prime Minister of England and now the target of a possible war crimes trial. Why the second? The first fella drowned, washed up on a New England beach after a fall from a ferry. Or some such incident. Soon enough, Writer No. 2 finds himself in the kind of trouble that would send Bruce Willis into a coma.

“Ghost Writer” crosses the tracks and double backs a dozen times, and even if I saw some of the path ahead, I sure as hell didn’t know exactly how I was going to get there. Nearly every scene, including the final frame, can be taken at least three ways, and all of them more clever than the last. (And funny, darkly nasty funny.) MIA from any real good film since 2001’s “Moulin Rouge,” it’s a treat to see McGregor back in leading-man status. And is it me, or is Brosnan at his best playing a dick?

When Polanski is released from prison after many years, I hope the SOB goes back to work. Movies such as this are too scarce in today’s “Transformers,” spandex-wearing super hero world. Enjoy it while it lasts. And, yeah, I feel dirty for liking this man's work. A-