The Grin Reaper

In “My Giant,” Billy Crystal plays a low-rung talent agent down on his luck who accidentally meets a very, very tall man while in Romania. He brings him to America to make him a star. Rated PG.

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Children love big things, including big stars. The oversized hero in “My Giant” is nearly 8 feet tall, a towering product of over-amped growth hormones. Max (played by Gheorghe Muresan, a center for the NBA’s Washington Wizards) is an intimidating physical presence, but he’s also a sweetheart.

Team proportion with personality and apparently you come away with a winner.

At a screening in Brea, 8-year-old Shelli Williams of Yorba Linda was startled when she first saw Max but warmed up to him once he began grinning and talking with his thick yet gentle accent.

“He [looked] bad but then was nice and funny,” she said.

Max meets Sammy (Crystal) after a crash on a country road in Romania. Max, who lives alone near a monastery, pulls the unconscious Sammy from his car and later they become close friends.

Sammy likes Max right off, particularly when he sees how Max can become a sensation playing movie villains. Dollar signs flash in Sammy’s eyes when he first stares at Max, but most kids saw how lovable this giant could be.

“He was a real friend,” Shelli said.

Her pal, 9-year-old Brett Livermore, also of Yorba Linda, added: “Yeah, he wasn’t weird or anything. He was a cool guy.”

Brett also thought it wouldn’t be bad to have a guy like Max around. He laughed when reminded of a scene in which Sammy’s son picks Max for his baseball team.

“He’d hit [lots of] home runs,” Brett said. “Nobody would want to fight with you, either.”

“My Giant” takes a somber turn after Max and Sammy return to the States. Because of his size, Max has a heart condition and may not live much longer. That disappointed some children who had come to appreciate the bond between Max and Sammy.

“I didn’t like that,” said Amber Larkin, 9, of Brea. “He didn’t hurt anybody [and] that shouldn’t happen.”

Cynthia Hidalgo, 11, of La Habra thought it was an unnecessary downer. “He should have just lived with [Sammy and his wife, played by Kathleen Quinlan]; that would have been better.”

Not everybody liked “My Giant.” Some teenagers thought it was sappy and mainly targeted to children and their parents.

“It was lame because it wanted you to cry,” said Bobby Weiss, 15, of Fullerton.

Still, some of the movie’s jokes were hilarious, he added. He loved it when Max, in his first film role, gets sick all over a stuck-up actor. Bobby also thought several scenes of Max strolling through Manhattan, with New Yorkers gawking up at him, were amusing.

“I guess parts were pretty funny. But it wasn’t that good.”

His girlfriend, 14-year-old Maria Consalvo, also from Fullerton, was more generous to “My Giant.” She couldn’t believe that Bobby wasn’t more appreciative.

“It was sweet and cute,” she said, then looked hard at her boyfriend. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

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PARENTS’ PERSPECTIVE: “My Giant” came close to ideal family entertainment for most parents. Denise Hooper of Brea was charmed by Max’s kindness and his friendship with Sammy. The movie was fun while offering lessons about trust, loyalty and inner beauty, she said.

“I love [movies] that have it together for [families], and this did,” she said. “Parts were a bit too much, but it got you to look at who Max was instead of what he looked like.”

Eric Smith of Fullerton felt the same way, but he thought very young children (perhaps those younger than 5) might be disturbed by Max.

“He’s a sweet character, [but] early on he is kind of spooky,” he said. “My daughter [Kim, 6] was taken aback but then loved him later. . . . I had to tell her he was a good guy early on.”