I Kill Giants (2017)
January 7, 2019 3:32 PM - Subscribe

Barbara Thorson struggles through life by escaping into a fantasy life of magic and monsters.
posted by kokaku (4 comments total)
 
I watched this movie a few months ago. I thought it was great, but I also feel like explaining why would be spoilery, and I am spoiler-averse. Anyone who finds the premise even slightly interesting, just go with it, it pays off.
posted by ejs at 11:50 PM on January 8, 2019 [1 favorite]


It's a really good comic, and a pretty good movie adaptation, but it's been a while since I've seen either, so my memory for additional details is weak.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:35 PM on January 9, 2019


Even though I caught on to what was going on (not quite the details, but the gist, and I won't spoil it here), when the reveal happened, it still hit me like a ton of bricks (and pulled up some unresolved things from my life that I hadn't realized were still there). I was never a teenage girl, but I found the high school interactions believable, in their movie-fantastic way.
posted by kokaku at 11:40 AM on January 10, 2019 [1 favorite]


It is so hard to talk about this story without spoiling! But I agree that it's best to go in cold, although I'm sympathetic to viewers who aren't comfortable with that.

I read the comic recently and just caught the film on Hulu. I prefer the latter, I think. The comic was good, but there were a few changes I liked. Mainly the embellishments/expansions to Barbara's giant-hunting - the runes and feathers and bones - that were sometimes whimsical and sometimes unsettling, as the story went on. The use of sound/muffling where the comic intentionally used censor bars, though both were effective. And the movie took out a couple of sour notes from the book, like a slur Barbara used at the phys ed teacher.

I also felt the tension between the realistic and fantastic elements more strongly with the live-action version. I liked the stylized art style of the comic, but I kind of got lulled into thinking of it as a purely fantastical story because of it. Barbara seemed like a righteous little badass instead of a scared kid who was acting out. Pulling back and forth between both is where the story is, and I "got" that better with the live-action.

It only hit me at the end of the movie that it made an interesting bookend / counterpart to Colossal. YA vs. quarter-life-crisis, less open-ended, sadder / more uplifting, fantasy tropes instead of science fiction tropes. Still, we've got a blend of fantastical elements and character study, about """difficult""" female characters. Greatly enjoyed both, for different reasons.
posted by cage and aquarium at 9:06 PM on January 19, 2019


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