I Kill Giants (2017)
Directed by Anders Walter
Sophia, a new high school student, tries to make friends with Barbara, who tells her that “she kills giants,” protecting this way her hometown and its inhabitants, who do not understand her strange behavior.
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What critics compared I Kill Giants to
Let's get something out of the way up front: I Kill Giants is more than likely going to remind viewers of at least one of two possible movies, as there's a heavy dose of both Spike Jonze's Where The Wild Things Are, as well as J.A. Bayona's A Monster Calls contained in its text.
I Kill Giants, while a decent debut full-length feature from director Anders Walter (based on Joe Kelly’s graphic novel), is an unfortunate victim of timing as by the time the credits rolled I wish I had just re-watched A Monster Calls (one of the absolute best movies of 2016).
Perhaps the best of all of these, 2016’s powerful A Monster Calls , is the closest cousin to director Anders Walter’s feature debut, I Kill Giants.
Kelly may have got there first with his story in 2008, but JA Bayona’s 2016 adaptation of Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls was more ambitious with its big screen retelling.
The story strongly recalls J.A. Bayona ’s 2016 film A Monster Calls — Kelly’s graphic novel hit shelves two years before Patrick Ness’ novel A Monster Calls, but the movie adaptation of the latter beat I Kill Giants to the screen by a year, and the symbolism and even some of the monster visuals are undeniably so similar that I Kill Giants feels like it’s operating in the other film’s shadow.
It doesn't help that J.A. Bayona's superbly crafted "A Monster Calls" covered the same subject matter with greater imagination and dramatic intensity last year.
The debut feature of director Anders Walter is based on the graphic novel of the same name by Joe Kelly (who also adapted the screenplay), and it’s at once familiar and unsettling, with shades of Pan’s Labyrinth and Return to Oz.
Following Joe Russo’s recent fellow Netflix entry Extraction and Joe Kelly’s superior I Kill Giants from 2018 (a must-see gem available on Hulu and Hoopla), Greg Rucka received the chance he didn’t get with 2009’s forgettable bomb Whiteout .