Talk about a big concept. Based on star Billy Crystal's meetings and discussions with the late professional wrestler, Andre the Giant, about his life as a giant (on the set of their movie, "The Princess Bride"), this film is a mixture of flat out visual gags, comedy, and a lot of Frank Capra- esque material. Better than his last film, "Father's Day," but not as good as "When Harry Met Sally," or "City Slickers, this picture should please Crystal's fans as long as they're not holding their breath for nonstop, outrageous comedy.
Easily winning hands down for the best sight gag -- the diminutive Crystal paired with the towering Muresan -- contained in any movie within the last few years, the film starts off on a quick, comedic pace. With some brief, introduction to the story voice overs, we learn that Crystal's character, Sammy, is an opportunist with little luck, no money, and a pubescent client who's just fired him. He's also separated from his wife and has just learned that she's taking their son and moving across the country. It's a decent, standard setup for a film like this and puts matters in place that will need the Capra touch ("It's A Wonderful Life") to set those things straight by the end.
Crystal's not going for outrageous comedy here, but the sight of him eating at Max's gargantuan table -- with his feet dangling from the oversized chair and using a soup spoon the size of a ladle - - is quite funny. The sight gags continue throughout the first half (Max riding in Sammy's tiny convertible making it look like a go-cart, etc...) as do Crystal's one-liners ("I don't like heights. That's why I stopped growing in the fifth grade"), but the comedy well pretty much runs dry in the second half as the movie turns more into a sentimental collection of life lessons. While that sounds somewhat sappy -- and it is a little -- Crystal and his onscreen chemistry with Muresan make the film easy to watch.
As always, Crystal aptly handles and balances the comic and sentimental material with relative ease, and is as much fun to watch as ever. He's the comic "every man" and while he often does play his standard "neurotic Jew" material for laughs (waking up in a monastery but seeing a crucifix, he comments that he's in Heaven, but "the wrong one"), he doesn't come off as wimpy like Woody Allen. Although this isn't one of his better roles, he's decent in it.
Muresan, the 7'7" basketball center for the Washington Wizards, does a decent job in his film debut -- especially considering the circumstances. Not only is he awkwardly tall to appear in this, or any movie (yes, that's part of the joke), but Muresan didn't speak a great deal of English before the film began shooting. Although his pronunciation is occasionally difficult to understand, his weeks of training did pay off. Perfectly at ease on the camera, Muresan creates a very sympathetic and good-natured character and, although it's questionable how many roles will be offered to him in the future, he certainly holds his own in this one.
Director Michael Lehmann ("Heathers," "The Truth About Cats And Dogs") and screenwriter David Seltzer ("The Omen," "Punchline") have fashioned a pleasant enough film that offers few surprises but doesn't suffer horribly from being too predictable. The chemistry between Crystal and Muresan seems natural, is enjoyable, and adequately compensates for the lack of humor in the second half.
Even so, most viewers will probably think this is a laugh-a-minute riot (based on the visual thoughts of the pairing and from the advertising) and may be disappointed when the film turns a little mushy toward the end ("I was a small man wanting to be big and he was a big man wanting to be small," etc...) and goes for tugging at your heart instead of tickling the funny bone. Although it's not a great movie by any means, as long as you don't expect it to be an outrageously funny movie you'll probably find it agreeably enjoyable. We give "My Giant" a 6 out of 10.