Follow up:
Gulliver’s Travels (2010)
20th Century Fox
MPAA Rating: PG for brief rude humor, mild language and action.
Starring: Jack Black, Jason Segel, Emily Blunt, Amanda Peet, Chris O’Dowd
Directed by: Rob Letterman
Produced by: John Davis, Ben Cooley, Jack Black
Studio Synopsis:
In an epic, modern take on the classic tale, Jack Black is Lemuel Gulliver, a mailroom clerk at a travel magazine. After Gulliver tricks his way into an assignment writing about the secrets of the Bermuda Triangle, he is hurtled to an undiscovered land, Lilliput. In this fantastical new world, Gulliver is a bigger-than-life figure — in size and ego – especially after he starts telling tall tales, taking credit for his world’s greatest inventions, and placing himself at the center of its most historic events. Gulliver’s position is enhanced even further when he leads his new friends in a heroic battle against their longtime enemies. Ultimately, Gulliver becomes a true giant among men when he learns that it’s how big you are on the inside that counts.
J.P.’s Take:
I usually try to keep an open mind about movies that take on classic tales. The new version of “Gulliver’s Travels” stars Jack Black, and after watching the trailers for this movie, I knew it wasn’t going to be the famous story of childhood wonder that I use to know.
I felt the first 30 minutes started off pretty innocent and mundane enough. Black basically plays an every man, Lemuel Gulliver, who works in the mail room at a travel magazine company. Gulliver has aspirations of becoming a writer, but he has even bigger plans for hooking up with Darcy Silverman (Amanda Peet), one of the head writers for the company. He then fakes an article for which he passes over to Darcy just to impress her. She, in turn, gives him an assignment for a trip to the Bermuda Triangle. Well he is whisked away by a huge whirl pool and lands on the island of Lilliput. O.K., it was starting to get interesting from there, because there Gulliver meets people who are about the size of an action figure.
First of all, the tidal wave sequence was pretty cheesy looking and the comedy didn’t really begin until Gulliver starts to interact with the little people of the tiny island. Yeah, I laughed when he was being attacked by the town’s miniaturized military forces, who found him washed up on the beach. He gets snagged by their ropes by the seat of he pants as they attempt to pull him down. Well, he ends up landing on them with his pants half way down. The first couple of battle scenes were interesting to watch. From there the laughs became few and far between, though I did laugh because the whole thing was just plain old silly. The dialog and jokes fell flat, which are only gut busting laughter to the kiddy crowd. Basically Jack Black was being typically Jack Black: the loveable slacker who seems to win people over with his wacky sense of humor. Unfortunately, in “Gulliver’s Travels,” none of his efforts really added up to anything meaningful or of substance. The romantic moments between him and Peet had no set up; therefore, didn’t feel genuine.
I mainly found myself routing for Horatio (Jason Segel), who wants to break out of his shell to court Princess Mary (Emily Blunt). I did enjoy the character performances from well known actors Segel and Blunt in their respective roles, along side Billy Connolly as King Theodore. Filling out the rest of the cast is T.J. Miller as Dan, Chris O’Dowd as General Edward, and Catherine Tate as Queen Isabelle.
The ending wasn’t a humbling experience; instead it plays up to the absolute ridiculous with a final battle scene reminiscent of many famous robot battles. Overall, this film is cute in its humble beginnings; something to take the family to on a holiday weekend when you have nothing else to do. But it ran out of gas towards the end. So instead, I would recommend Disney’s “Tangled,” which has a much better storyline, better acting, cool animation, etc.
Richard’s Quick Take:
I got a chance to see “Gulliver’s Travels” with J.P. I do agree with him on parts of his review, which usually doesn’t happen that much. As he stated, he didn’t have high expectation with the film, since Jack Black is known for his crazy off-the-wall comedy. And he wasn’t wrong, unfortunately.
I actually enjoyed the first 30 minutes of “Gulliver,” which surprised me. I thought it was charming — there were humorist moments with a little drama (i.e. Black’s character was in the same mailroom job for years with no ambition to move forward with his career). Gulliver has been interested in one of the writers (Amanda Peet), and he found himself in a situation where his dishonesty leads him to an unwanted assignment in the dreaded Bermuda Triangle. From there, he rents a boat and caught up in a raging storm. When he wakes up, Gulliver is tied up and lying on the beach with tiny people standing on his chest.
I liked the opening scenes where Gulliver discovers that he is in the land of Lilliput. There were some pretty good visual special effects, as the giant man falls on the beach (the funniest moment) and then is transported through the miniature city of Lilliput. It looked really good in 3D. I thought the filmmakers did a fantastic job in keeping the 3D style throughout the entire film, which is definitely a highlight in the viewing.
Now for the negative: I just wished after Gulliver found himself in Lilliput that the writers would come up with a good plot for rebooting the classic novel. Instead, they go for bathroom humor (if you see it, it has some chuckles), unrealistic carpentry (building a huge house for Gulliver in a week?), a sequence where he is a doll trapped in a huge dollhouse (still don’t understand why), and worst of all, a battle sequence between Gulliver and his arch-enemy Edward (Chris O’Dowd) that resembles somewhere between Will Smith’s lame “Wild Wild West” film and “Transformers.”
What started out as a charming story with full of potential really went south when it came to a follow up story. It was extremely frustrating to watch a film take a route where you are sitting there just shaking your head in disbelieve. I know I wasn’t the only one, because the preview audience I watched it with was so quiet during the last 45 minutes or so. Usually at the end of the film, you may hear some applause from the audience, but with “Gulliver” there was nothing, except the noise of people heading toward the exit.
I thought Black was a good choice for this version of Gulliver. He wasn’t the Prince Charming type, but he brought some cuteness to the role. I just wished they gave him better material beyond his usual crazy antics in films. This could have been a major role for Black to breakout with that would have lasting staying power for the DVD library. Honestly, this will be one of his most forgettable films, placing this right next to “King Kong.”
I didn’t care for some of the Lilliput characters, like Princess Mary (Emily Blunt) and Horatio (How I Met Your Mother’s Jason Segel). Their love for each other felt forced in the storyline; it was really contrived and unbelievable. Segel and Black could have been a good tag team as buddies in this film, but their “friendship” material felt rushed as well. Sadly, too, Peet wasn’t anything special for her role as Darcy, Gulliver’s love interest. She was really plain and not very interesting in the overall picture. Funny man Billy Connolly was believable as The King of Lilliput and an unexpected appearance from recent Doctor Who companion Catherine Tate was sorely underused as The Queen. Tate could have brought the house (or castle) down with her comedic sensibility as seen in her popular UK sketch comedy series.
So, is “Gulliver’s Travels” worth seeing and paying $12 bucks a person? Not really…unless you are a major Jack Black fan. One reason to watch: seeing it in 3D on the big screen is one of the few highlights in this promising start, but lost in silliness feature.