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A girl wielding a huge weapon in front of a massive giant makes up this dramatic poster for Anders Walter's I Kill Giants |
A small girl in a US coastal town rejects normal school life in favor of her hobby; hunting and killing in the forest along the ocean. - But does this curious interest cover over something else?
I Kill Giants is written by Joe Kelly (Monsuno (2011-12)), adapting his same-titled 2009 graphic novel co-created with Ken Nimura (Henshin (2015)), and directed by debuting Anders Walter (Helium (2013, short)).
A Monster Calls (2016) reminiscent story with an eternally supercilious, self-governing protagonist with a well-meaning, worried school councilor (Zoe Saldaña (Amsterdam (2022)) gives a dull sad-face performance), dumb brothers and a powerless bigger sister. An overly sweet new British schoolmate girl seems invented solely to get us closer to our little miss nonsense, who is given many a scene to elaborate her wacky nonsense universe. It is all gravely dull.
Humor, real suspense or dramatic development is missing in I Kill Giants. SPOILER The ending unsurprisingly shows that the fantastical elements are all self-invented in order for the girl to cope with her mother's cancer illness. She dies. The girl did not get to see her mother through her last time on earth due to her nonsense hunts in the wild. Nevertheless she thanks an imaginary giant in the film's last scene, wrapping up a story and film that is distant from actual reality and prone to hokum.
Related post:
Anders Walter: The day after ... The Oscars 2014
Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: Estimated 15.1 mil. $
Box office: In excess of 369k $
= Box office disaster (returned 0.02 times its cost)
[I Kill Giants premiered 9 September (Toronto International Film Festival) and runs 106 minutes. 13 companies and support bodies collaborated in the financing and production of the film. Shooting took place from September 2016 - ? in Belgium, Ireland and New York. The film was released day-and-date (online and in a few theaters) in North America with the gross numbers remaining secret (but likely being tiny). The film's reported gross comes from 7 markets, which, along with Denmark, where it sold just under 2,000 tickets, comes to 369k $. The three biggest markets were Russia with 165k $ (44.1 %), the UAE with 85k $ (23 %) and Portugal with 40k $ (10.8 %). The-Numbers.com allege that the film additionally made more than 1.7 mil. $ on domestic home video sales. Walter returned with Når Befrielsen Kommer (2023). Madison Wolfe (Keanu (2016)) returned in Trafficked (2017); Saldaña in a voice performance, a short and a music video prior to her theatrical return in Avengers: Infinity War (2018); and Imogen Poots (The Father (2020) in Age Out (2018). I Kill Giants is certified fresh at 78 % with a 6.70/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of I Kill Giants?