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Gulliver's Travels (2010)

Director: Rob Letterman

Time Out rating

Average user rating

17 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

Like so many abridged versions of Jonathan Swift’s classic eighteenth-century novel, director Rob Letterman’s baggy adaptation eschews the writer’s extended travelogues in favour of debarking on the island of Lilliput and pretty much remaining there for the duration.

The camera first alights on the mailroom of the New York Tribune where one Lemuel Gulliver (Jack Black) continues his menial job as a postman. Conscious of, but happy with, his social standing among the newspaper’s high-flying bigwigs, Gulliver is nevertheless persuaded by a fellow colleague to improve his lot. So, using entire chapters plagiarised from Time Out and Fodor’s travel websites, he persuades Amanda Peet’s editor Darcy – for whom, of course, he has the hots – to commission him to do a write-up. She then sends him off to the mysterious and dangerously stormy Bermuda Triangle…

And so we set sail towards the main bulk of the storyline, as Gulliver washes up on the shores of an island occupied by a race of six-inch-high little people. At this juncture the film dances into Monty Python territory with pompous Regency characters flapping about spouting frivolous dialogue – none more so than Chris O’Dowd’s hawkish Graham Chapman-like general.

The film has a high old time playing with its clash of cultures but as a piece of storytelling it’s all over the place. Scenes crash into one another as if the whole structure was developed on the fly; we even get a bit of ‘Transformers’ thrown in for bad measure – and not one, but two romantic subplots. Black rolls out his amusing ‘School of Rock’ shtick a couple of times and there’s one especially comical homage to ‘Cyrano de Bergerac’. But mostly it veers between the very mildly chucklesome and plain not funny. Youngsters will doubtless enjoy the sight of a galoot galumphing around a model village, but the script is so dispiritingly slipshod that even they’ll be egging it on towards its foreseeable conclusion.

Author: Derek Adams

Time Out London Issue 2104/5: 18 – 29 December, 2010

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User reviews of this film

Alex said...

Posted on Oct 04 2011 12:49 Truly, truly awful. Clearly this was put together purely as a money making excercise. How depressing. 2 hours of my life I will never get back.

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Josh said...

Posted on Apr 26 2011 01:03 It's depressing to see what Holly(crap)wood spits out these days. Jonathan Swift's satire was a good if not great literary achievement. Each place that Gulliver taveled to was an exageration of a social characteristic and was meant through the use of satire to point out our own faults and societies own vanities. As well as its redeemable possibilities. Watching this remake, I have to wonder if the screenwriters even read Jonathan Swift or know what satire is. And why oh God WHY does EVERYTHING that comes out of old plain dead washed up hollywood have to be about "the guy gets the girl" these days?! Why?! The original story had so much more depth to it. This is just garbage and everyone YES INCLUDING Mr. Black should be ashamed of themselve for their shoddy work. Other than that I give it a C-, that is if they were just trying to remake the first few pages of Swift's original work.

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Cruzer said...

Posted on Feb 02 2011 17:00 Can't believe the film industry is allowing the release of such a terrible screenplay, with bad 3d and special effects - and even worse, why do such eminent actors endorse the making of the film by allowing themselves to be associated with it.
A total let down from every perception. Keep your money, buy the book and let your own imagination do the work!!!

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Charlotte said...

Posted on Jan 29 2011 09:29 this film was amazing! The actors line up Fantastic! although there wasn't much 3D action, it was a brilliant film and is great for young and old!! bit pricey but definitly worth it!!

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Pete S said...

Posted on Jan 22 2011 19:26 i took my 9 year old son and his friend to see this today and it was the biggest load of pants i've seen in a long time, they were also completely underwhelmed to say the least. It seems the 3d badge is now an excuse to churn out endless rubbish at the expense of decent plots/story lines, and decent acting, £8.65 for each child and nearly £12 for me and then robbed at the till for 2 medium cokes and popcorn at £13.80
this was the maidenhead odeon but as im orginally from cumbria was interested to see how mugged i was!
thank goodness it was only 1 hour and 25 minutes, incredible value,
enjoy while it lasts odeon, your business model is doomed
and do get me started on the cost

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imaan said...

Posted on Jan 22 2011 10:47 can't wait to watch it my uncle and cousins loved it!

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roger rabbit said...

Posted on Jan 15 2011 18:04 starts with S ends with E {8 people walked out after 25mins and into The Kings Speech,,which is fantastic}

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Anom said...

Posted on Jan 15 2011 09:10 This movie was excellent! On the adverts it looked quite babyish but its a really good film. Jack Black was amazing too!!!!!!! Great movie!

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Gwen said...

Posted on Jan 13 2011 10:21 My daughter and I went to see this film recently and we both came away very disappointed. Considering the quality of the cast the acting was quite poor, the story line disjointed and very few laughs. I usually like Jack Black but this was not one of my favourite films should have stayed at home and watched TV.

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Max said...

Posted on Jan 12 2011 19:23 Dont waste your time. Awful film with a lot of wated talent

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Stephen Jones said...

Posted on Jan 10 2011 21:09 Gullivers travels, in hindsight I wish that I and my seven year old had not bothered to travel to the cinema or part with the better part of fifteen quid to watch this film. The story or what there was of it stumbled from one ridiculous premise to the next, the appearance of a stray from one of the transformer movies being one of the narratives particular low points.
If the cast, crew and production team were to hold their hands up and say sorry we did it for a bet or for the money then I'll forgive them just this once, don't do it again. However if this is not the case then they should all be ashamed of this woeful film.

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Eddie Lapsley said...

Posted on Jan 05 2011 14:36 Not surprise this bombed in the states, should have believed the reviews, this film stinks and acting is terrible

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E A Dobson said...

Posted on Jan 02 2011 18:57 I hate Jack Black! So glad the film bombed stateside

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Bruce said...

Posted on Dec 30 2010 14:25 Saw this film with my eleven year old daughter. It was ok, we chuckled a a few bits but mostly it was pretty ordinary. Thing that disappointed us was that it was billed as a 3D film (and we paid extra for this feature) but there were very few if any real 3 D effects. I'm of the opinion this is being used to con more money out of the viewer.

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Sharon said...

Posted on Dec 30 2010 10:36 Yes, Jack Black is very good. A very entertaining film.

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