Gulliver’s Travels (which was written in 1726) has been adapted for film many times. A quick look at Wikipedia shows this is the 17th film about the story, so there’s a very big chance that you already saw a version of this story about a man who ends up on the island of Lilliput inhabited by tiny people who are in a state of war with a rival island. Does Jack Black manage to give a fresh twist to this story with his humour?
Before Lemuel Gulliver (Jack Black) ends up on the island he’s introduced as a loser who’s been a mail boy for years. He doesn’t have any ambition and has a crush on the reporter doing travel reports. As he’s also shy he hasn’t asked her out on a date, but through some luck he manages to get a chance from her to write a story about the Bermuda triangle. It’s the perfect place to have him end up in Lilliput.
Of course he wants to get back home as he’s being treated as an animal.
He does manage to become friendly with some of the inhabitants, but also has enemies, which will offer a bit of tension for the youngest viewers. Don’t expect too much of this film as this really is aimed at kids. It did offer an hour and half of light entertainment. Jack Black does his typical Jack Black act and has some nice parodies on other films.
The thing which really annoyed me about this movie was the amount of product placement. There’s a lot of Coca Cola, iPhone and Guitar Hero shots, which was really annoying. There are really no movies I remember where product placement worked (maybe Morgan Spurlock’s new documentary will be the only one). Of course it’s another easy way for the film company to get extra cash, but as a viewer you feel cheated and annoyed (other movies where it was also very obvious were for example Cast Away, I, Robot and The Island).
My expectations of this movie weren’t high and I knew the target audience, but I must admit that I enjoyed watching it although I’m sure that I will forget about it very soon.
Score: 7