‘GULLIVER’S TRAVELS’ IS ONE FUN BUT FORGETTABLE COMEDY
The mailroom in the basement of a newspaper office may be the best Lemual Gulliver (Jack Black) will ever aspire to. Working there for ten years, he isn’t ambitions and sees life as a game. He cannot even ask out the girl he fosters a five-year crush on. Travel’s editor, Darcy Silverman (Amanda Peet) is the one person in the office who is nice to Gulliver, and he cannot work up the courage to ask her out. Then Gulliver’s mundane life is gets worse. To try and impress Darcy, he fakes being a world traveler and is given a small fluff piece. But then when Gulliver wakes, he’s shipwrecked and retrained with ropes. To make matters worse, hundreds of people — little people, crawling over him! Gulliver’s Travels
Lillliput isn’t about to mess around with this “giant.” Since the King’s General (Chris O’Dowd) captures him, he’s happy to toss him into the dungeon along side his rival for Princess Mary’s affections, Horatio (Jason Segal). When the King’s sworn enemy attacks, Gulliver breaks free of his shackles, rescues the Princess (Emily Blunt) and single-handedly saves the King (Billy Connolly). This makes him a hero, and soon Gulliver isn’t just a “nobody,” he’s someone a whole lot of people look up too, in a BIG way.
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‘GULLIVER'S TRAVELS’ IS ONE FUN BUT FORGETTABLE COMEDY #Movies #Comedies #ComedyMovies Share on XThankfully, this isn’t something that over-excited me, so I didn’t bother with the big-screen. As a classic children’s tale, this really misses the appropriate marks in illustrations of wholesomeness. For a movie largely promoted over holidays, it’s really not a great family film. This version of Gulliver’s Travels is, interesting, to say the least. The comedy is mainly slapstick and, that kind of wears thin when you’re not a die-hard fan of that type of physical comedy.
Special effects aren’t anything fabulous since the better part of the filming isn’t quite right. It looks out of proportion and very mismatched for several key scenes, but that does come from green room filming. The filming in English castles is lovely and provides some of the more genteel backdrops with some truly pretty scenes. Just when you think you have something figured out, the story brings something to the table to surprise us.
Its dialogue is a mix of Shakespearian and a lot of fawning, fake pretenses; or pretend dramatics. Somehow I love how filmmakers mix the quaint charm of a costume movie with the modern culture references (most of which are, admittedly, hilarious!). Costuming is pretty to look at, especially Blunt’s dresses as is the blending of modern dress and pop culture! Casting Emily is a treat because so many of her roles in years past have been stirring; this one was more of a “mockery” for her, something fun to play with (she ends up with gumption!). This is only the second time I’d seen Jack in anything, but I really have no opinion on his acting.
To be honest, I cannot whole-heartedly say, yes, I recommend this. There’s some laughs and if you can look past the blatant attempt at outrageous comedy that doesn’t go anywhere, it’s a fun time. Otherwise the movie, loosely based on the classic by Jonathan Swift will disappoint for someone expecting the real Gulliver to show up. That makes this one ticket you might not want spend the money on.
Content: There’s some crude incidents, including Gulliver “relieving” himself to put out a fire. There’s much ado about this (including a statue in his honor). (The camera sees no nudity but he flashes everyone.) The entire event plays as funny, but is nothing more than a gross gimmick for the adult audience. A couple other innuendoes are out-of-line plus there’s a little bit of profanity (a**). Gulliver attempts to help Horatio in his wooing endeavors (the results of which come out terribly crude), plus he fabricates his entire life. Gulliver’s Travels is PG.
