It would seem that Hollywood’s most popular trend of late is taking children’s stories and attempting to dramatize and darken them. It’s been done to “Snow White,” “Hansel and Gretel” and now “Jack and the Beanstalk.” At this point, it’s really only a matter of time before we get a sinister Goldilocks revamp or a dark re-imagination of “Chicken Little.”

Honestly, I don’t know why this formula is so popular because it has yet to actually produce a good film. “Jack the Giant Slayer” is no exception. I didn’t hate the movie with a burning passion or anything, but it was just so frighteningly dull. It was about freaking _giants_, and it still bored me out of my mind.

Anyways, the story follows the tale of farm boy Jack (Nicholas Hoult) and his accidental planting of some magic beans. That much hasn’t changed. But the screenwriters added a Jets-and-Sharks-like feud between the giants and humans, so the beanstalk that sprouts underneath Jack’s house, bridging the gap between the two worlds, is pretty bad news.

Not to mention the local princess (Eleanor Tomlinson) is in Jack’s house when the beanstalk goes up, trapping her in the giants’ world. The king (Ian McShane, what are you doing in this movie?) is understandably put out about that. So a rescue mission commences, headed by Jack, a rather dashing knight (Ewan McGregor) and the princess’ betrothed (Stanley Tucci), who has nefarious plans to take control of the giants via magical crown and use them to conquer the kingdom.

Despite being so very boring, “Jack the Giant Slayer” actually has some pretty good acting in it. Nicholas Hoult is quickly becoming a Hollywood favorite, and rightly so. He is a capable actor, and he is so cute that I’m going to move on to the other actors now before I start ranting about how attractive he is.

McGregor and Tucci were absolute hams, but it worked because they’re both so genuine. Eleanor Tomlinson wasn’t given much to work with, but I think she did a good job regardless. And I still don’t understand why Ian McShane was in this, but he was solid, as usual. So basically I don’t know why any of these actors agreed to their parts because they’re all rather impressive, and this movie is anything but impressive.

I really can’t decide how I feel about the special effects. The giants were really detailed, but there was something about them that was quite cheesy and borderline garish. Also, there seemed to be a bit of a lag between the animation and the sound when they spoke, so that threw me off a bit.

In addition, the movie was about 30 minutes too long. It seemed like every time the storyline was about to exhaust itself, one of the characters found another freaking magic bean to grow another freaking beanstalk, and the story marched merrily on. They could have easily cut the last quarter of the movie when the giants finally reached the ground and a battle raged outside the castle walls, and I would have had no complaints about it.

An obscene amount of people get crushed and/or eaten by giants throughout the story. Seriously, there are so many deaths that it felt like a running gag. Let me do a quick calculation here … yep, 50 percent of the main characters go up against a giant and fail miserably. Those are dismal, “Game of Thrones”-level odds.

I think this movie is geared toward children, but I can understand why it would be scary for them, what with all the people getting smashed into jelly. But older kids are way too cool for this story (myself excluded), so I’m not exactly sure who the intended audience is supposed to be.

I mean, I really only saw it because I am terrified of exorcism movies thanks to an unfortunate encounter with “The Exorcist” at the tender age of 13. And while I don’t feel like I’ve lost brain cells from seeing “Jack the Giant Slayer,” I didn’t get anything from it either. It’s not the worst fairy tale adaptation I’ve seen, but it still only gets two out of five magic beans. Maybe gritty “Chicken Little” will be better.