Gulliver`s Travels is a 2010 English movie directed by Rob Letterman with Jack Black, Jason Segel, Emily Blunt, Amanda Peet in leading roles. Read the English movie review at CalcuttaTube.
Film: `Gulliver`s Travels`;
Verdict: A hurriedly made parody
Director: Rob Letterman;
Cast: Jack Black, Jason Segel, Emily Blunt, Amanda Peet, Billy Connolly, Chris O`Dowd;
Rating: *1/2
It is one of the greatest satires of all times that `Gulliver`s Travels` has been relegated to children`s literature. That the latest filmed version of the same treats the masterpiece with similar disdain is but a sarcasm on humanity itself, which ironically writer Jonathan Swift repeatedly indulged with in the book.
Lemuel Gulliver (Jack Black), a delivery boy, is one of the short people in his power and cannot convey his genuine feelings for travel editor Darcy (Amanda Peet). After being fired, he fakes being a travel writer and takes up an appointment to explore Bermuda triangle. There, he disappears, only to heat up in Lilliput, the kingdom of the little people who see him as a creature at first, but he manages to win them ended in the end, while also uniting a commoner in the ground with the princess.
There is a trace of a person in the movie with delivery boy Gulliver being the little, insignificant person in a big place and so the low caste Lilliputian Horatio (Jason Segel) aspiring for the higher class princess Mary (Emily Blunt).
But when you see the actual analogy of the original book, where the warring Lilliputians and Blefuscu were intended by Swift as criticism of modern society, this falls flat.
Quite opposite to the original satire, the film actually seems to support modern spirit with all its faults, as Gulliver turns Lilliput into mini-Manhattan. This and the mockery of Hollywood is not through with any higher intention but cheap thrills. Sadly, these barely raise a chuckle.
The picture thus ends up as naught but a picture of special effects for small children who incidentally have seen better effects in far superior films.
Also the foundation of the big people approach the end (Brobdingnag in the original story) is out of place, and gimmicky. It could have waited for a sequel. Perhaps the makers had the correct premonition that the film won`t go to possess a sequel, so they had to cram all in one.
Even the petty emotions and make up of humor that could have helped audiences connect with it are rushed up as if the makers were in a rush to stop the film.
Jack Black is himself in the film, indulgent and loony, which may or may not cause the floor depending on your hold on both the movie and Jack. Director Rob Letterman, who has given two decent animation films `Shark Tale` and `Monsters Vs. Aliens`, fails miserably with this one.
Unlike the original book, which is a mockery of new life, the film self-cannibalizes, ending up becoming a preposterous travesty of itself to be watched only if there`s nothing else to do.
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