Jack the Giant Slayer

It's been a long time coming, but almost three years after it was supposed to, Bryan Singer's Jack the Giant Slayer is finally hitting cinemas.

Singer has been on something of a downward slope for quite some time after skyrocketing to success thanks to The Usual Suspects and kick-starting not on the X-Men franchise... but also the template for modern superhero tentpole movies.

However, he got cocky, left the X-Men franchise to Brett Ratner and went onto make Superman Returns (a film unfairly remembered as a flop despite making close to $400M worldwide) and the somewhat forgettable Valkyrie and hasn't been heard of since. I often feel like he was replaced in people's minds by JJ Abrams.

Anyhew, he is back with this new take on an old tale which tells the story of an ancient war that is reignited when a young farmhand opens an impressive (if not CGI heavy) door way between his world and that of a fearsome race of giants.

Unleashed on the Earth for the first time in centuries, the giants attempt to take back the land they once lost, forcing Jack (Skin's and About A Boys' Nicholas Hoult) into the battle of his life in order to stop them.

There's an impressive list of names involved in the flick with everyone from Stanley Tucci and Ian McShane to Bill Nighy and Ewan McGregor showing their faces... so on paper it should be good fun. However the extreme delay of the release is somewhat disconcerting and could be a major indicator as to the quality of the final film.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see if Singer still has it, or if he's been officially weakened by kryptonite.