Gulliver's Travels (2010)

When I was young (and, admittedly even in my older years) I always thought that the story of Gulliver's Travels would be so cool if it happened to me. Imagine traveling to a country where everyone was itty-bitty. You were bigger and stronger than anyone who lived there. You could smash buildings with a stomp of your foot, or destroy whole armies with one swipe of your hand. It's sad that the new 'Gulliver's Travels,' starring Jack Black, does away with all the childlike wonder of the original story and instead thinks it would be funny if Gulliver peed on a palace fire to put it out. I understand that the pee scene is in the original book, but the movie lacks any acknowledgement of the satirical view of Jonathan Swift's book. Instead the pee scene is just there for a few cheap laughs instead of being a comment on the pettiness of government and its leaders.

Yeah, that's about the extent of comedic talent going on in this movie, which is a shame because I like almost everyone involved. I'm a fan of Jason Segel, Emily Blunt, and even Jack Black when he's given the right material to work with. Black, as Lemuel Gulliver, is nothing more than… well, Jack Black. This shtick works in something like 'School of Rock,' but here it's just worn way too thin.

Gulliver works in the mail room at the fictitious newspaper The New York Tribune. He hasn't set his sights too high. He enjoys delivering mail and doesn't dare talk to any of his co-workers who actually write for the paper. They're much higher and mightier than he. He has a crush on the travel editor, Darcy (Amanda Peet), but can't get up the guts to ask her out. So, he plagiarizes a few writing samples and pretends to be a travel writer in disguise. Completely disregarding the dire financial straights of the newspaper industry, Darcy gives Gulliver an assignment to fly down to Bermuda and check out that whole Bermuda Triangle thing. Gulliver is issued a boat that he doesn't know how to captain, given coordinates that he has no idea how to get to, and sets out to sea alone. Yep, it all seems very plausible. Then he encounters a giant tunnel of water that spits him out into the land of Liliput where he encounters tiny people who tie him down and treat him like the "beast" he is.

From here on out it's basically a sketch show where the movie puts Jack Black into situations and wonders what would Jack Black do if he was surrounded by tiny people? So he urinates on a fire and douses a few citizens for good measure, he uses his soft beer gut to thwart the cannonball attacks of oncoming miniature attackers, and he orders the people to build him a giant house complete with media room where they can act out movies like 'Star Wars' and 'Titanic.'

The laughs are few and far between, but there are some. I chuckled here and there, but in the end it's another remake that didn't necessarily need to be remade. The effects are done well, and the set design, including a miniature palace and Times Square are perfectly constructed.

Sadly though, the movie lacks the heart and satirical commentary of Jonathan Swift's original story. It replaces it with Jack Black's antics. Another loud American doing obnoxious things in a strange land, only this time the land is inhabited by tiny people.

The Blu-ray: Vital Disc Stats

'Gulliver's Travels' comes to Blu-ray in a combo pack from Fox which includes the movie on a 50-GB Dual Layer disc and a DVD copy which also contains the Digital Copy.