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Gulliver's Travels

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  • Gulliver's Travels

    The movie Gulliver's Travels openned on December 25, 2010.

  • #2
    Re: Gulliver's Travels

    How many times has this movie been remade?

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    • #3
      Re: Gulliver's Travels

      Originally posted by Walkoff Balk View Post
      How many times has this movie been remade?
      well, this and all other movies currently out, just reiterates that Hollywood is out of ideas. Such a shame.
      flickr

      An email from God:
      To: People of Earth
      From: God
      Date: 9/04/2007
      Subject: stop

      knock it off, all of you

      seriously, what the hell


      --
      God

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      • #4
        Re: Gulliver's Travels

        Gulliver's Travels
        Jack Black, Amanda Peet, Emily Blunt.

        You know, this had some potential. The set-up was there, the sweetness, the pathos for the film's main characters. The talent. But somewhere between an engaging first fifteen minutes and a rock-and-roll song-and-dance-sequence final five minutes, it gets horribly lazy. And that's too bad, because with a little more creativity on the part of the writers and director, Gulliver's Travels could have been one of those (lately rather rare) films that cracks the kids up and rewards the parents who pay for the admission tickets.

        Lemuel Gulliver (Jack Black) works in the mail room of a New York newspaper. He has been crushing on the editor of the travel section, Darcie Silverman (Amanda Peet), a pretty, smart, sweet journalist who seems to like Gulliver at least on friendly terms. In order to impress Darcie, Gulliver asks for a chance at a writing assignment for the section, a three-week, off-the-grid boatride through the Bermuda Triangle. A waterspout in the Triangle sends Gulliver to the land of Lilliput.

        The rest of the story's not really important; it's enough to say that Gulliver goes from being feared to being loved by the Lilliputians.

        Those with literary bents would want to know (at least, I would want to know) that the Brobidnagians make a very brief appearance, but there's no mention of the Houyhnhnms or any of the other peoples (not even the Glubdubdribs or the Japanese!) in the source novel.

        Look. This movie is pretty much what you'd have every reason to expect. Nobody is going to be very surprised at what's here. What I'm suggesting is that, especially based on a pretty good setup and a cast that could have handled it, this film COULD have surprised its audience by being all that and a bit more. It could have been a lot smarter in its stupidity, but while I can forgive the movie its lengthy urination sequence, I could forgive it a lot more easily if other aspects of being enormous could have been explored in other, more creative ways. However, near the end, when the film takes an unexpected (and pretty interesting) turn, it immediately returns to its lowest-common-denominator territory and a seemingly centuries-long war is settled by the singing of a song from the 1960s.

        A lot of critics seem to be wasting their breath on the effects. It's true that the effects are pretty bad, but that's not what makes this a bad movie, and better effects wouldn't have improved it one iota. What would have improved the film is if the writers had given their audience some acknowledgment of brains. The film pretty much accomplishes what it sets out to do; it's just disappointing it didn't set its sights higher.

        Early in the film, one interesting approach occurred to me. This movie is set in the modern-day United States, a country in which just about every educated person is familiar with the Gulliver's Travels story. Why deny that? Why not set this film in a world in which <i>Gulliver's Travels</i> exists? Then, rather than create the mythology out of scratch, there could be the irony of a character discovering that the mythology is real. In this way, some attempt at social satire might be made, perhaps in an updated spirit of Jonathan Swift's original work. I'm not saying this had to be <i>Wag the Dog</i> to satisfy me, but some kind of effort in that direction could have been so cool.

        Sigh.

        3/10
        31/100
        But I'm disturbed! I'm depressed! I'm inadequate! I GOT IT ALL! (George Costanza)
        GrouchyTeacher.com

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