Jack Black plays up the slacker loser a little too much. He's so pathetic and apathetic at the beginning that it's hard to root for him. Then all the actors are hamming it up. The actors are so broad that I'm laughing at the actors more than laughing with the actors. They are all doing this BIG acting that it just felt too fake. Some physical gags do get a smile. But they are far in between. For a comedy, the only important calculation is how many laughs there are. For this, there just isn't that many. Also Jack Black didn't need to lie so much. The fact that he lied so much made him just so much more unlikeable. It was a bad comedy but not necessarily as bad as the critics says.
Gulliver's Travels
2010
Action / Adventure / Comedy / Family / Fantasy
Gulliver's Travels
2010
Action / Adventure / Comedy / Family / Fantasy
Plot summary
Lemuel Gulliver (Jack Black) has been working in the mail room of a New York daily newspaper for the past ten years. Afraid to put himself out there, he considers himself a loser, as do all of his peers. One day, after having finally had enough, he decides to declare his love to the beautiful Darcy Silverman (Amanda Peet),the newspaper's travel editor and one of Gulliver's only friends, only to chicken out at the last minute and instead tell her that he'd like to try his hand at writing a column. Darcy accepts and sends him on an assignment to the Bermuda Triangle. There, Gulliver becomes shipwrecked and ends up on the island of Liliput, where he is twelve times taller than the tallest man. For the first time, Gulliver has people looking up to him.
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Too broad to be funny
Blurred travels
Gulliver's Travel is a satirical book by Jonathan Swift. From the trailers to this film you sort of get the idea that this was never going to be a satire of any sorts.
Jack Black (Gulliver) plays a slacker mail room clerk in a travel magazine who thinks he is hip. He sort of gets the message that he is a loser when a newly employed mailroom clerk gets promoted above him the following day.
In order to impress the travel editor who he also fancies (Amanda Peet.) Gulliver by plagiarising articles somehow bags an assignment at the Bermuda Triangle and magically ends up in Lilliput.
At Lilliput he is portrayed as a beast but Gulliver uses his giant size to save them from their rivals at war and becomes a favourite of the king and protector of the kingdom.
However, Chris O'Dowd who intends to marry the princess is left out in the cold and plots his revenge. He intends to cut Gulliver down to size.
The lame script guts the classic book by Swift. What we are left with are signature Black moves including the dancing he has done in other of his films and some pop cultural references.
The film has little or no wit, no sharp satire and no originality.
Mediocre
It's not great, but not too small either. Apart from that, I can see why some people really hated the movie. It does not really have much to do with any Gullivers Travel you might know. And I guess some will be disappointed with Jack Black. But the movie is really not that bad, that you have to hate it.
Of course the basics are the same as the story goes. Jack Blacks character is the main man, but one of the "little people" is stealing the show. I forgot the actors name, but you have seen him in quite a few comedies (Forgetting Sarah Marshall and others). Try to enjoy it or leave it, if you can't dig the first minutes.