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The Giant King
By Renee Longstreet,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Comic animated robot tale has heavy action, crude humor.
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The Giant King
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Based on 1 parent review
Weird, confusing, violent, with poorly-written script
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What's the Story?
Zork (Russell Peters), a giant, multiarmed robot who dreams of being a kindergarten teacher, and Pinky (Bella Thorne), a small robot with prominent eyebrows and no dreams at all, are revived many years after being buried during a giant robot battle in THE GIANT KING. With no memory of each other or how they got there, the two are aghast to find that they're chained together. What's more, no matter how hard they try, the chain can't be broken. And so they set off to find Ram, the creator of all robots, and seek his help. Along their journey across a vast robot land, populated by assorted oddballs and comic predators, Zork and Pinky become heroes; their bravery and cunning keeps saving innocent bots from tragedy. As they get closer to their goal, they begin to connect and care about one another. Then, little by little, the two remember the past -- a past that threatens their newfound friendship and, scariest of all, Zork's very existence.
Is It Any Good?
Imaginative animation and quirky comic characters keep this message-heavy robot movie from combusting during its many explosive, and sometimes too-long, action sequences. An abundance of robots occasionally complicates the plot (at times it may be hard to tell Pinky and Rusty apart), and audiences may not remember which "dreams" belong to which robot. But Melanie and Mychal Simka, the English-speaking adaptors of this movie from Thailand (loosely based on the Sanskrit poem "Ramayana," in which a giant robot wanders in a desert after a great war) have done a nice job with the material they were handed. The jokes and the characters are fresh and culturally relevant to Western audiences; it's a seamless transition. The movie is best for middle-grade-level kids and tweens who like a lot of smash-'em-up bot battles and enjoy some name-calling and a booger joke or two.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about how Pinky changed over the course of the movie. Who was she at the beginning, and how was she different by the end? Which experiences made her a better person/robot?
Many movies for kids give human qualities to nonhuman characters (animals, robots). What are the human qualities of Zork, Pinky, and Rusty? How do filmmakers use this "personifying" device (also called "anthropomorphism") to spark your imagination and make the stories relatable for audiences?
The filmmakers attempted to combine comedy with lots of action. Were they successful? Think about some of the unusual characters. How did they make a battling-robot movie funny?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming: December 22, 2015
- Cast: Russell Peters , Bella Thorne
- Directors: Melanie Simka , Papas Cholsaranont
- Inclusion Information: Indian/South Asian actors, Female actors, Pansexual actors, Latino actors
- Studio: Lionsgate
- Genre: Family and Kids
- Topics: Friendship , Robots
- Run time: 104 minutes
- MPAA rating: PG
- MPAA explanation: action, violence and mild crude humor
- Last updated: August 19, 2023
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