Film Review: Jack Black, Emily Blunt Think Big in ‘Gulliver’s Travels’

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CHICAGO – Call it too much holiday eggnog, but the re-imagining of the immortal classic “Gulliver’s Travels,’ starring Jack Black, Emily Blunt and Jason Segal, has a little Yuletide fun and hurts no one. If you like Jack Black, you’ll enjoy the film. If you don’t, find another way to spend 93 minutes this tinsel time weekend.

HollywoodChicago.com Oscarman rating: 3.5/5.0
Rating: 3.5/5.0

Black is Lemuel Gulliver, a manchild who works in the mailroom at a popular travel magazine (soon the publishing industry will cease as a movie glamour profession, but I digress). He is thirtysomething, stuck on post pubescence and has an ambition-less path in his life, having been the mailroom manager for 11 years. His one distraction is the crush he has on an editor, the fetching Darcy (Amanda Peet).

When a new guy is given his manager position, a distraught Gulliver takes some action. Forging some distinct travel writing, he manages to get a Bermuda Triangle assignment from Darcy. He goes into the nebulous region via a small boat, and proceeds to get sucked into a watery vortex. Knocked out and washed ashore, when he awakens he finds himself confined by ropes. Ropes that have been affixed by an army of tiny men.

Gulliver has landed in Lilliput, a kingdom of industrious and miniature people. He is now a giant among men, and with the help of Princess Mary (Emily Blunt) and commoner Horatio (Jason Segal) he becomes the protector and rock star of the new land. Lilliput becomes a virtual shrine to Gulliver’s glory, as he takes credit for every invention and entertainment from his old world.

When war looms with a rival island, Gulliver is forced to get into the middle of the scrum, and a jealous general (Chris O’Dowd) switches sides and helps build a robot opponent. Can giant Gulliver survive the fight, a temporary banishment to another land and the loss of trust from the citizens of Lilliput? No worries, there are no sad endings at Christmas.

“Gulliver’s Travels” opens everywhere December 25th. Featuring Jack Black, Jason Segal, Emily Blunt, Amanda Peet, Chris O’Dowd, T.J. Miller and Billy Connolly. Screenplay by Joe Stillman and Nicholas Stoller (based on a book by Jonathan Swift), directed by Rob Letterman. Rated “PG”.

StarContinue reading for Patrick McDonald’s full review of “Gulliver’s Travels”

Wrapped up for the Holidays: Jack Black in ‘Gulliver’s Travels’
Wrapped up for the Holidays: Jack Black in ‘Gulliver’s Travels’
Photo Credit: © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.

StarContinue reading for Patrick McDonald’s full review of “Gulliver’s Travels”

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