Gulliver (Jack Black) is a nobody working in the mailroom of a newspaper and he has a massive crush on Darcy (Amanda Peet). One night, after being demoted, he gets the courage to approach Darcy and claims to be a closeted travel writer. He then forges a writing sample and gets sent on an assignment to the Bermuda triangle. However, before he can get to his destination he ends up in the land of Liliput – where he is a giant.
Before I even say anything I’d like to say that the very reason I don’t usual go to see or review these types of movies is because they’re not made with me in mind. This movie was made for a four-year-old, and if I had known that I was going to be watching this maybe I would’ve found one to tag along with me so that I could somewhat gauge his/her reaction to try and make this review more appealing to parents/cousins/siblings out there who’re considering taking their younger counterparts to see this movie.
To say that this movie is exactly what it’s marketed as is pretty much hitting to nail on the head. The film is a ninety minute excuse for Jack Black and company to throw in a lot of fart humour at you in some horribly shot 3D. The plot is simple enough and once you get past the first fifteen or so minutes and we’re actually in the kingdom of Liliput is when the real disaster begins. The film’s humour ranges from watching Black drop his pants to put out a fire to watching him receive a massive ‘giant’ wedgie.
What makes me want to hate this movie is that the citizens of Liliput – even though are wrong to just immediately jail Gulliver as quickly as they do – never realise how much Gulliver is taking advantage of their hospitality. Gulliver basically turns Liliput into his own little play land and if it weren’t for the betrayal that occurs somewhere half-way through the movie Liliput would never have taken the veil up from their eyes to see it themselves. So at no point do you end up liking Gulliver or his ridiculous lies.
The film then walks itself into one of the most boring clichés that almost every movie does. After all of these poor decisions that the main character has made we’re left with this final act where Gulliver says ‘I’m sorry’ and all is magically forgiven. I know how at their core these simple themes are important for children to get and understand, but life is bigger than that and people have to live with the consequences of their actions.
What I guess surprised me the most in this movie – even more than a reference to skeeting – was how horribly used the 3D was. The film was converted to 3D and at this point I’m not surprised. There were a handful of moments where the image had depth, most of them were times when it seemed everything on screen was computer generated, but overall it all just seemed flat. I recommend that everyone who keeps doing these full frame focus flat films just go watch Speed Racer and use the camera technology that the Wachowski’s used there and you’ll get the same effect without making me mad at having to say that the 3D was ineffective in every regard excepting my wallet.
The movie is a waste of your time and there’re better 3D films and children films this year for you to share with your child (see How to Train Your Dragon or Toy Story 3). For the love of god please stop Jack Black from singing random pop songs in movies.
IMDB says N/A
Rotten Tomatoes says 31%
I say 0.5/10