DVD Gulliver’s Travels

First things first: if you are watching Jack Black's version of Gulliver's Travels because you're a fan of the original book, you might want to skip it altogether. Gone is the literate and satirical edge that has kept the story in print for over two centuries. Instead we have a loud, brash, very "Hollywood" retelling in which the nearest we get to satire is when Black topples backwards and squishes a Lilliputian in his butt-crack. There are some very mildly amusing moments in this film, but overall it is a regrettable example of the direction major American studio releases seem to be heading. That is to say: over-marketed, self-satisfied, bland nonsense, made with business in mind and not the art of film-making itself.

Mailroom slacker Lemuel Gulliver (Jack Black) works in a huge Manhattan editorial office. He spends most of his time quoting movies, playing Guitar Hero, and wishing that gorgeous hotshot travel editor Darcy Siverman (Amanda Peet) will notice him. One day, Gulliver realises that he has spent the best part of ten years doing nothing with his life… so to impress Darcy he takes on a minor assignment investigating strange goings-on in the Bermuda Triangle. During the trip, Gulliver's boat is caught up in a strange oceanic vortex and flung into a strange other-worldly kingdom known as Lilliput. Here the inhabitants are no bigger than insects and Gulliver appears as a fearsome giant. Soon he befriends the King (Billy Connolly), the Queen (Catherine Tate), the Princess (Emily Blunt), and an honourable prisoner (Jason Segel). But a slimy and untrustworthy military man, General Edward (Chris O'Dowd), refuses to buy Gulliver's tall stories and plots to rid the land of this new giant once and for all….

The fact that Jack Black is merely playing Dewey Finn from School Of Rock, and transposing the character to another film, is just the beginning of this film's problems. The overall acting talent wasted here is enough to make a grown man cry. Connolly fails to raise a single smile as the Lilliputian king, while Blunt (whose career so far has been refreshingly sure-footed) is reduced to the level of a ditsy bimbo. This will do her career no favours whatsoever. Segel, Peet and especially O'Dowd are all equally guilty of frittering away their talents in moronic roles. In terms of finding positive things to say about the film, at least the special effects are pretty good, and there are infrequent amusing moments (mainly references to other films, or sprinklings of toilet humour). Overall, though, that's about as positive as I can be. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the concept of modernising Jonathan Swift's novel, but not if it's to be reduced to this level of cheap vulgarity and simple-minded storytelling.

Gulliver's Travels is fun, a fantasy, not taking itself seriously light comedy. You won't learn anything, you won't cry, you won't witness historic cinema in the making. You will spend an hour and a half watching an enjoyable family film that doesn't pretend to be anything more than a fun adaptation of an age old tale by Jonathan Swift.

I marked the film 7 because I enjoyed watching it, isn't that enough? Must everything be critiqued so much that we lose enchanting family films that just cheer us up momentarily.

Sometimes; Now this might upset the media studies students who seem to be taking over IMDb, sometimes I don't want to have to concentrate on plots and sub plots, sometimes I just want watch a film and escape for a bit, is that OK with you, must everything be Cannes fodder? If you want to have fun and watch a dumb romantic comedy watch Gulliver's Travels, if you're an over serious sneering sceptic… don't. It's that simple.