my giant is two movies for the price of one , but <NEG> neither is worth the cost of admission </NEG> , even if you get in free . as <NEG> lamely directed </NEG> by michael lehmann , the picture tries to be a comedy by using and reusing every giant joke in the book . ( " without goliath , david is just some punk throwing rocks . " ) <NEG> languidly paced throughout </NEG> , the movie becomes <NEG> increasingly lugubrious </NEG> as the screenplay by david seltzer ( the omen ) meanders toward its sad ending . since it's rarely funny or convincingly dramatic , what the filmmakers thought they were doing remains a mystery . other than a few nice visuals , <NEG> there's nothing to recommend the picture </NEG> . with great film comedies under his belt from when harry met sally ? to the original city slickers , billy crystal has shown that he's more than the world's best oscar host . he does , however , <NEG> have a propensity for choosing hopeless material </NEG> as in last year's father's day and this year's my giant . one wonders if he reads the script before agreeing to go ahead with a project . surely reading the one for my giant would have shown that there was nothing there . perhaps he thought he could ad lib it into success . or maybe he wants to be a dramatic actor and thought he could do something serious with the movie's somber tone . the most charitable thing that could be said about it is that <NEG> it is so ineffectual that people will probably forget </NEG> they saw it by the next day . this one-joke movie's single idea is to place real-life basketball player gheorghe muresan , who stands seven and a half feet tall , into as many visually striking situations as possible . sammy ( crystal ) , an agent currently without clients , is rescued after a car accident by a sweet romanian giant named max ( muresan ) . after throwing out constant one-liners ( " either god is in the salvage business or big foot just took my car . " ) , sammy decides to get serious , seeing max as his meal ticket . and although he doesn't like it , he's willing to sign max up to do disgusting events like a wrestling match with a half-dozen dwarfs . ( the movie itself knows no bounds as <NEG> it contains one of the most putrid and lengthy vomiting scenes ever </NEG> . ) after a series of missed opportunities , the comedic part of the movie is over , and it turns into <NEG> a cheap and maudlin disease movie </NEG> . we learn that max's condition is terminal , and he will soon die . to be fair , the movie does contain a few good scenes - all of which you can see in the trailers . let's hope billy gets himself a pair of reading glasses before he signs up for another movie . my giant <NEG> runs too long </NEG> even at just 1 : 37 . it is rated pg for violence and profanity and would be acceptable for kids around ten and up . my son jeffrey and his friend matthew , both 9 , gave the movie a single star and had nothing good to say about it . matthew pointed out that it " is not as good as it could have been or should have been . " ( amen . ) he went on to comment that he did not like the way the movie changed completely in the middle . jeffrey complained particularly about <NEG> how gross the movie was </NEG> .
