Rating: 
Summary: Creativity at Its' Best!
Review: I watched this when it was on TV with rapt fascination. Its' almost hard to believe that a movie about a fairy tale could have a high level of drama and suspense. But this movie did! This film is a fine example of creativity at its' best. It adds to the fairy tale without making it come out as silly and stupid. The movie is about Jack Robison the heir and CEO of a large company. He is the one of a long line of men by that name who never survive past their 40th birthday. It is up to Jack Robison to find out why then men in his families expire so quickly and how he can break this curse. Believe me the results will surprise you.
Rating:
Summary: A return to great storytelling
Review: I've shown this movie for three years now in a creative writing class for kids. I continue to be amazed at how intricately it weaves its story -- I discover something new on each viewing. It's a complex story and the pacing is at times slower than what kids (12-13 years old) are used to, but I prepare my students for that up front and it never fails to catch their imaginations. I rejoice that here is a movie that doesn't spoon-feed the audience but requires that you become an active viewer, to search out clues, to allow yourself to sit with the mystery and not know exactly what the real truth is all the time as the story masterfully leads you through its unfolding. My only complaint -- the reference to genetically engineered food, I give an aside on that as to what the pros and cons of such a venture are.
Rating: 
Summary: A Waste of a potentially good story
Review: Jack and the Beanstalk-The Real Story, is perhaps the most poorly acted, slap-and-dash, poorly constructed and played out additon to the seeming trend and series of "fairy tale retellings and adaptations" that occured right after the Hollywood version of the story of Cinderella in "Ever After" and the brilliant but realtively unknown "Snow White: Tale of Terror" with Sam Neil and Sigourney Weaver, as well as Hallmarks series of Fairy Tale retellings, most of which are poorly realized and wasted potentials. While this is a Henson company production, this story could easily be added to the "poorly realized" adaptations out there. 'Jack [...]' is another one to be added to this growing list.
Staring Matthew Modine, as a distant descendant of the original Jack. It takes the idea that Jack was not the magnifiscent hero in Fairy Tales but was in fact a theif and a liar, and that Matthew Modine's characters family fortunes were nothing more then pilfered treasures from a magical land in the clouds. With Jim Henson company signed on board working in this story, what should have added to another classic Henson Co. production is nothing more then a boring, cliched and poorly acted out story. Matthew Modine and his love interest are at best mildly interesting characters that should have perhaps been side characters rather then the main focus of the story. The magical land in the clouds is so, uninteresting and shoddily thrown together.
While Jack and the Beanstalk has incredible potential for being taken to another level in terms of retelling and adaptations, I couldn't help but think perhaps "Jack the Giant Killer or Jack of Kinrowan", different titles to the same story written by Charles DeLint for a "Fairy Tale Retelling" series created by Terri Windling, would have worked better for a "modern" version of this story. Slowly paced and then horribly acted, this story is nothing more then something to be passed into forgetfullness.
Rating: 
Summary: Making Belief Impossible - Extravegant Drivel!
Review: Lavish visuals and star power cannot rescue this piece of extravegant drivel! My annoyance with Jack was largely because of the potential, talent and money it squanders.It's a clumsy, predictable and heavy-handed morality play which, not trusting its characters (for good reason), resorts to narrating its lessons. The screenplay wanders from cliché to inanity to convenience and seems to have been introduced in the editing suite. The acting ranges from wooden to exploitive, with some particularly gifted players managing both qualities at once. Musical flourishes announce each revelation and instruct us on the appropriate response, just in case we hadn't seen it coming from a mile off. Convenient emotional touch-points are provided for people whose hearts might become lost in the meandering script. There are procedural and plot holes you can literally drop a giant through (e.g. despite porous security and dozens of witnesses, the giant's skeleton is excavated in complete secrecy). In a story that challenges us to believe in the impossible, such gaping wounds oblige us to abandon all hope. Retellings should add depth and scope to classic tales. Henson serves up confetti and cream-of-wheat.
Rating:
Summary: A Dark and Violent Muddle - NOT for kids
Review: My wife and I rented this film to watch with our youngest child. The box copy seemed to be promoting an updated version of the fairy tale, with effects by Jim Henson's shop.
We were not prepared for a 3-hour long film filled with corporate machinations and bloody violence.
The premise is that the original Jack who stole the goose and harp caused incredible suffering by doing so (you see, the giant was not a tyrant, he was actually very kind and loving), and every male descendant of his has been killed before the age of 40. Today's Jack (a wasted Matthew Modine) is brought up the mythical land of giants to stand trial for his ancestor's crime.
The movie is FAR too long for younger children, yet it is too silly for adults.
The dialogue is hideous, the story filled with every imaginable cliche, and the pacing interminable. That rules it out for adults.
Yet it is so long, with fist fights and several violent deaths, as well as side plots taking place in the boardroom of Jack's corporation, that it is wholly inappropriate for young children.
Directed by Brian Henson more as a result, I suspect, of nepotism more than any sort of talent, don't fail to miss this gloomy, violent mess.
Rating:
Summary: Very good movie.
Review: Nice Story, good actors and the butler is perfect!
So I think this movie is very good, and nice to see it. Greez Lex Moneyshot
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing - fine cast could not rescue this one
Review: Since I love fairy tales, and have a weakness for "retellings," the beginning of this film, with its promise of providing the rest of the story, indeed captured my interest. I enjoyed the beginning, and expected that the interesting premise, not to mention the sort of special effects and acting which one could expect from the Henson shop and Vanessa Redgrave, would be delightful. My enthusiasm paled rather quickly as the action progressed. Apparently the dual, and confusing, premises were that one is responsible for unknown events set in motion by ancestors of centuries before, and that some vague, puzzling removal of a magical economic boost (despite the golden eggs being in storage...) destroys the entire resources of a magical people. Much as the viewer is supposed to be outraged by the lying (original) Jack's theft and treachery, the violence implicit in the people "up there" and their bizarre giants makes it rather difficult to believe that Jack had been in a cosy wonderland.
Rating:
Summary: Looking at in all directions
Review: The story is fasinating, the characters are great, so is the cinematograhpy!!! Sometime people then to stick to what they have been told stories like this makes you think and start to consider on a more broader perspective .Even a fairytale can teach that looking at something in a different angle makes one to understand others.
Rating:
Summary: What a beautiful story!
Review: This film is really more beautiful than the bloody and disgusting "original" tale or myth of JACK!
The visual effects are really beautiful. The acting is excellent. A wonderful work, indeed! Worth having and watching several times, no doubt at all.
Rating:
Summary: Parents need to pay more attention..
Review: This film was rated PG....folks who complain about it not being apropriate for their small children are right. But it is their own fault for not paying attention.
Just because something is made by Hensen, and just becasue it is is based on an old fairy tale doesn't mean it is automatically for children.
Parents stop blaming the film makers and pay attention to the what the film says on its packaging!
Aside from that this film is wonderful, not at all boring as some think, but and interesting intelectual twist on a fairy tale. It was a delight to see this well acted, well filmed TV movie that truly had some heart and good storytelling to boot!
Mia Sara was excellent and the lovely twist at the end was well done and hard to see coming. I'm talking about the "True" story of Jack and his mother, not the actually ending of the film. Which was a little cliched but I belive that cliches, if done well are not always a bad thing. And the cliches in this story have more to do with the parallels to the original fable and so are not a bad thing at all.
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