Movie Review: 'Gulliver's Travels'

Jack Black only knows how to play one person: Jack Black. This is pivotal information, because whether or not you like Jack Black is a key factor in deciphering whether or not you will be able to enjoy GULLIVER’S TRAVELS in the slightest. How much you love the childhood story is irrelevant. Jack Black is key.

Like I was saying, Jack Black plays Jack Black, only in the film he goes by a different name, Gulliver. When we first see him he’s playing with two Star Wars action figures, employing voices and all. He plays Guitar Hero in between breaks at work. We have a hardcore nerd (in the worst sense) on our hands here. Gulliver works in the mail room at a travel magazine, his place of work for the past 11 years. Probably the only thing keeping him content there is his insane crush on Darcy (Amanda Peet), a travel editor at the magazine. He knows he’s just drifting through life, letting it pass him by. He’s even referred to (more than once, I might add) by himself and others as “the little guy in the mail room” (pun much?). But big things (see, I can do it ,too) are soon to happen to Gulliver. When Darcy asks him to take on an assignment at sea to report on the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle, the fun begins. While at sea, Gulliver gets caught in a terrible storm (but I suspect the special effects were worse to endure than the storm), and he wakes up to find himself tied down, and surrounded by an army of little people… lots and lots of little, thumb-sized people, in a strange land called Liliput.

A world where Jack Black is a giant. Oh the possibilities. A house is on fire and all the people inside are going to burn to death! So, of course, Gulliver pees on it. To be honest, I was just relieved that they didn’t show us a giant version of Jack Black’s member in 3-D. We are subjected to his ass in 3-D, but hey, you win some, you lose some. You’d be surprised how good the cast is though, especially for a silly movie like this that has only had bad buzz surrounding it since the debut of its first trailer. Our main Liliputians are played by Emily Blunt, Jason Segel, and Billy Connolly. Blunt plays the beautiful Princess Mary, and Segel the lowly commoner who fancies her, Horatio. Their charm was the saving grace of the film, and I have to admit that I enjoyed watching Gulliver coach Horatio in the real way to court a woman. Most of the humor was flat though, and more often than not we’re overwhelmed with pop culture reference after pop culture reference – TITANIC, Kiss, Marky Mark, you name it – and while amusing, referencing to things of much more value than the film you’re starring in does not a good movie make.

Rating: C