Heading into this hot mess of tired flatulence and urine jokes I knew it was going to just be Jack Black's usual flailing arms and motormouth bulldozing that has become his trademark. But the notes he hits here are so dull and whittled-down its hard to even imagine him in inspired performances like School of Rock, Kung Fu Panda and especially the brilliance of Tenacious D (the folk metal comedy routine he does with Kyle Gass not the awful Pick of Destiny movie). The movie starts with Gulliver being a sad sack loser mail room clerk who is goaded into asking his reporter boss Darcy (Amanda Peet) for a writing assignment. She sends him to the Bermuda Triangle and the hilarity is suppose to immediately ensue. Unfortunately for the viewer nothing but tedious trite movie drivel commenced. Gulliver's boat (aptly named the No Sail) is caught in a whirlpool that takes him to the land of Lilliput. A kingdom with people only a few inches tall. They at first imprison him out of fear then end worshiping him after he rescues the king from a fire by relieving himself on the burning castle. Filming at its finest. There's a silly subplot where Horatio (Jason Segel) is coached by Gulliver to awkwardly woo the Princess (Emily Blunt) in in turn is promised to General Edward Edwardian (Chris O'Dowd). The punchlines are all to familiar even the visual are pretty impressive. The comic power of Billy Connolly (King Theodore) and Catherine Tate (Queen Isabelle) are completely wasted on this script which was both pompous and puerile by equal measure. The director Rob Letterman continually delivers movies that seem half-finished as in Monsters vs. Aliens and Shark Tale. Somehow Darcy shows up in Lilliput just in time to see Gulliver fight the giant robot created by the hated Blefuscusians, a fight that ends with a giant mechanical wedgey. This was not the journey Jonathan Swift envisioned. Obviously it was a kids movie but the Teletubbies had more wit and charm than this disaster. My advice: don't travel with Gulliver on this failed adventure.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Jack Black's Gulliver's Travels was not the journey Jonathan Swift envisioned
This was an impossibly nitwitted film filled with Jack Black's signature kinetic mania, bathroom humor and sad unclever satire. Heading into this hot mess of tired flatulence and urine jokes I knew it was going to just be Jack Black's usual flailing arms and motormouth bulldozing that has become his trademark. But the notes he hits here are so dull and whittled-down its hard to even imagine him in inspired performances like School of Rock, Kung Fu Panda and especially the brilliance of Tenacious D (the folk metal comedy routine he does with Kyle Gass not the awful Pick of Destiny movie). The movie starts with Gulliver being a sad sack loser mail room clerk who is goaded into asking his reporter boss Darcy (Amanda Peet) for a writing assignment. She sends him to the Bermuda Triangle and the hilarity is suppose to immediately ensue. Unfortunately for the viewer nothing but tedious trite movie drivel commenced. Gulliver's boat (aptly named the No Sail) is caught in a whirlpool that takes him to the land of Lilliput. A kingdom with people only a few inches tall. They at first imprison him out of fear then end worshiping him after he rescues the king from a fire by relieving himself on the burning castle. Filming at its finest. There's a silly subplot where Horatio (Jason Segel) is coached by Gulliver to awkwardly woo the Princess (Emily Blunt) in in turn is promised to General Edward Edwardian (Chris O'Dowd). The punchlines are all to familiar even the visual are pretty impressive. The comic power of Billy Connolly (King Theodore) and Catherine Tate (Queen Isabelle) are completely wasted on this script which was both pompous and puerile by equal measure. The director Rob Letterman continually delivers movies that seem half-finished as in Monsters vs. Aliens and Shark Tale. Somehow Darcy shows up in Lilliput just in time to see Gulliver fight the giant robot created by the hated Blefuscusians, a fight that ends with a giant mechanical wedgey. This was not the journey Jonathan Swift envisioned. Obviously it was a kids movie but the Teletubbies had more wit and charm than this disaster. My advice: don't travel with Gulliver on this failed adventure.
Heading into this hot mess of tired flatulence and urine jokes I knew it was going to just be Jack Black's usual flailing arms and motormouth bulldozing that has become his trademark. But the notes he hits here are so dull and whittled-down its hard to even imagine him in inspired performances like School of Rock, Kung Fu Panda and especially the brilliance of Tenacious D (the folk metal comedy routine he does with Kyle Gass not the awful Pick of Destiny movie). The movie starts with Gulliver being a sad sack loser mail room clerk who is goaded into asking his reporter boss Darcy (Amanda Peet) for a writing assignment. She sends him to the Bermuda Triangle and the hilarity is suppose to immediately ensue. Unfortunately for the viewer nothing but tedious trite movie drivel commenced. Gulliver's boat (aptly named the No Sail) is caught in a whirlpool that takes him to the land of Lilliput. A kingdom with people only a few inches tall. They at first imprison him out of fear then end worshiping him after he rescues the king from a fire by relieving himself on the burning castle. Filming at its finest. There's a silly subplot where Horatio (Jason Segel) is coached by Gulliver to awkwardly woo the Princess (Emily Blunt) in in turn is promised to General Edward Edwardian (Chris O'Dowd). The punchlines are all to familiar even the visual are pretty impressive. The comic power of Billy Connolly (King Theodore) and Catherine Tate (Queen Isabelle) are completely wasted on this script which was both pompous and puerile by equal measure. The director Rob Letterman continually delivers movies that seem half-finished as in Monsters vs. Aliens and Shark Tale. Somehow Darcy shows up in Lilliput just in time to see Gulliver fight the giant robot created by the hated Blefuscusians, a fight that ends with a giant mechanical wedgey. This was not the journey Jonathan Swift envisioned. Obviously it was a kids movie but the Teletubbies had more wit and charm than this disaster. My advice: don't travel with Gulliver on this failed adventure.
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