Gulliver's Travels is a fantasy comedy film directed by Rob Letterman and very loosely based on the 18th-century novel of the same name by Jonathan Swift, though the film takes place in the modern era. The film stars Jack Black, Emily Blunt, Jason Segel, Billy Connolly, Catherine Tate and Amanda Peet as Darcy Silver and is distributed by 20th Century Fox. Originally scheduled for release on June 4, 2010, it was pushed back to December 24, 2010 and later changed once again to December 22, 2010. 20th Century Fox later announced on March 23, 2010 that the film would be converted to 3D.On December 13, 20th Century Fox announced that it would again move the release date, this time to December 25, 2010.
Plot
The plot does the same animation as the book and cartoon film, but there are changes. Lemuel Gulliver (Jack Black) is presented as the boss of a newcomer named Dan (T.J. Miller), but Dan gets promoted and is now Gulliver's new boss. Deeply depressed at his dead-end job in the mail room, Gulliver decides to talk to journalist Darcy Silverman (Amanda Peet). He convinces her he could write a report about his (false) extensive world "travels" saying his dream is to become a writer. After suffering writer's block, he plagiarises a report from other publications on the Internet. The next day, Darcy, impressed by his writing, presents Gulliver with a new task – to travel to the Bermuda Triangle and write an article confirming that the legend of ships mysteriously disappearing in the area being caused by extraterrestrials is not true.
Upon arrival in Bermuda, Gulliver rents a boat and travels into the triangle. He's caught in a freak storm and the boat is overwhelmed by a waterspout. He washes up unconscious, on the shore of Lilliput, where he is immediately confirmed as a "beast" by the town's tiny population. He is captured and imprisoned in a cave, citizens claiming him to be dangerous, because of his huge size. Here, he meets another prisoner named Horatio (Jason Segel) who was jailed by General Edward (Chris O'Dowd) because he fancies Princess Mary of Lilliput (Emily Blunt), whereas Edward wants her for himself. After the island across from Lilliput enacts an invasion, Gulliver manages to break free of the plough-machine he is forced to work and then rescues the princess from being kidnapped and her father, King Benjamin (Billy Connolly) from a fire.
Gulliver is declared a hero by Lilliput's citizens, and Gulliver makes up a deal of lies saying he is the President of the United States and a living legend in his homeland. Edward, however, becomes enraged due to the luxurious accommodations he receives, even being presented as an honorary general of Lilliput. When the townspeople find Gulliver's boat and his things, Gulliver gets angry voice mail messages from Darcy, angrily saying she has to take his place and travel to Bermuda now, and also found out about his plagiarism and she no longer wishes to be friends with him. The next day, chaos ensues as the population across from Lilliput enact an attack on the city when Edward shuts down the defenses surrounding Lilliput, as an act of revenge for Gulliver treatment. Gulliver defeats the neighboring population again, invulnerable to the cannonballs being fired at him (although he receives numerous welts on his stomach).
Edward abandons the Lilliputian army, joining the enemy forces instead. Using a powerful and gigantic robot from one of Gulliver's sci-fi magazines that they secretly built, Edward makes Gulliver surrender after he is beaten and embarrassed by Edward's robot, he is banished to the island across from Lilliput, admittedly saying to his onlookers that he is "just the guy from the mail-room" and nothing more. Meanwhile, on the shores of Brobdingnag ("the island where we dare not go"), he is captured by Glumdaclitch and forced to become her doll. Darcy is then imprisoned by the Lilliputians when she is lost in the Bermuda Triangle in the same manner as Gulliver. Horatio reveals to Gulliver that she is imprisoned. Gulliver narrowly escapes with him, using a parachute from Glumdaclitch's dollhouse that he took from a dead air force aviator.
Once again accepting a duel from Edward, Gulliver ultimately defeats him with the assistance of Horatio, who disables the machine's electrocuting weapon. Horatio is hailed a hero and gets King Benjamin's permission to court the princess. Edward, reaching the point of insanity, threatens to kill the princess, but the princess, finally having enough of Edward, beats him up in frustration. Gulliver then helps to make peace between the rival island nations by reciting Edwin Starr's "War" and he, along with Darcy, return to New York on their repaired boat. It's revealed they later became a couple and successful fiction writers in New York, writing about their experiences on Lilliput.
Cast
- Jack Black as Lemuel Gulliver
- Emily Blunt as Princess Mary
- Jason Segel as Horatio
- Amanda Peet as Darcy Silver
- T.J. Miller as Dan
- Catherine Tate as Queen Isabelle
- Billy Connolly as King Benjamin
- James Corden as Prince Joseph
- Chris O'Dowd as Edward
- Romany Malco as Young Hank
- Nikki Harrup as Jane
- Danni Bennatar as Glumdaclitch
- Olly Alexander as Prince August
Production
In a January 2010 interview on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, Segel explained his character spends most of the movie in Black's shirt pocket. The movie features 7.1 surround audio in select theaters.
The plot centers on Lemuel Gulliver (Jack Black), a free-spirited travel writer who, on an assignment to the Bermuda Triangle, suddenly finds himself a giant among men when he washes ashore on the hidden island of Lilliput, home to a population of industrious, yet tiny, people.
Marketing
The official trailer for Gulliver's Travels was released on June 4, 2010 and attached to Marmadukea day after. The second trailer was released on November 5, 2010 and it is also attached with Megamind. As a prize on the television show Survivor: Nicaragua, four of its contestants were able to watch the movie before its release.
A fourth Ice Age short, Scrat's Continental Crack-up, was released with Gulliver's Travels. The short is a parody of continental drift, and centers on a humorous alternative explanation for the creation of the continents. It also hints at the next Ice Age movie due out in 2012.
Reception
Gulliver's Travels has received generally negative reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a score of 21%, based on 100 reviews, with the consensus "Though Jack Black is back doing what he does best, Gulliver's Travels largely fails to do any justice to its source material, relying instead on juvenile humor and special effects." The average rating from critics is 3.9/10.The Observer called it "truly dire" while The Guardian gave it 2 out of 5 stars for a "defanged version" of the film. New Jersey On-Line called it a "misguided remake of a classic" with "dreadful special effects", Variety dubbed the film "bland" and Daily News awarded it 2.5 out of 5 stars, calling Black's performance "so lazy and familiar." The Hollywood Reportercommented that "any sense of fun slowly drains away as the movie insists on highlighting effects over character and story" while Time Out gave it 2 out of 5 stars, commenting that the film "veers between the very mildly chucklesome and plain not funny." The Christian Science Monitor called it "a movie of such stupendous uninspiration" that it was "monumentally dreadful" and the San Francisco Chronicle gave it 2.5 out of 5 stars, calling it "cute" but "sleep-inducing." Slant Magazine rated the film 1.5 out of 5 stars and Empire rated 2 out of 5 stars calling it "a low-grade comedy that'll have Jonathan Swift turning in his grave."
Other critics were less harsh, although still not praising of the film. Roger Ebert claimed that knowing who the film is for, and who it is not, might help viewers appreciate it. He awarded the film three out of four stars, saying "I want to tread carefully here, and not because I might step on a Lilliputian and squish him." Some performances were praised in the film, notably Chris O'Dowd, who was compared to John Cleese and Nigel Hawthorne 'in creating sympathetic baddie Edward'
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