Movies.ie

• Critic rating
• Currently 2/5 Stars.

Movies.ie Critic Review

It’s a story that seems almost written with CGI in mind, clergyman Jonathan’s Swift tale about a man who finds himself on an island populated by people under 15cm in height crying out for some hi-tech computer wizardry. Updated, that unwitting giant is slacker newspaper mailroom monkey Lemuel (Black), who gets to be King Kong for a while for a largely British cast. Connolly is the king, crap actor Tate his queen, and cuddly Chris O’Dowd is the military fly in the ointment.

THE VERDICT: You know you’ve got a comedian’s love-in underway when Jason Segal is your romantic lead. The man looks like a mechanic. With a drinking problem. The gags here are largely aimed at kids, and right up until the misfiring singalong finale of War, they’ll love it. Parents would be better off waiting in the lobby. 

Review by Paul Byrne

• Avg User rating
• Currently 1/5 Stars.

User Reviews

• • Currently 2/5 Stars.

  vu1999uk

  

  While nothing special, this was actually better than I thought it would be. There are a good few laughs and the whole cast have some great fun, while Chris O'Dowd is excellent as the villian.

• • Currently 3/5 Stars.

  mart

  

  To make a faithful version of Swift's 18th-century satirical fantasy Gulliver's Travels, you'd probably need to get Tim Burton to team up with Ken Loach. Or maybe get Michael Winterbottom to make something with the witty, freewheeling, questing spirit of his Tristram Shandy film A Cock and Bull Story. As it happens, this moderate new Hollywood version is directed by Rob Letterman, whose previous credits include Shark Tale and Monsters Vs Aliens and co-scripted by Shrek writer Joe Stillman. As is traditional with Gulliver adaptations, the third and fourth sections of the book are entirely missed out – that is, the sections with the Struldbrugs, the Yahoos and Houyhnhnms – and all we get is the first two tales, in which Gulliver first visits Lilliput, where everyone is very small, and then (briefly) Brobdingnag, where they are very big. Jack Black plays Lemuel Gulliver, a nerdy present-day loser in the mail-room of a fancy magazine, secretly in love with the travel editor, Darcy, played by Amanda Peet. He bluffs his way into a travel assignment in the Bermuda Triangle, where he finds himself in the land of the little people, where everyone is either a British actor (Emily Blunt, James Corden) or speaks with a British accent (Jason Segel). It isn't too bad: there is one funny sequence in which Gulliver puts on a theatre show for the benefit of his minuscule new friends, purporting to be scenes from his own remarkable life, which are all horribly plagiarised from movies like Star Wars and Titanic. But as so often, this diluted Gulliver's Travels is presented as if it were a children's story, clearly influenced by similarly defanged versions of Alice In Wonderland. Actually it is a very different, fiercer beast. A grown-up Gulliver is what we need.

• • Currently 3/5 Stars.

  SEEYA

  

  Its a bit of a laugh

• • Currently 1/5 Stars.

  lionqueen

  

  I THOUGHT i liked jack black, but this was terrible.

• • Currently 2/5 Stars.

  pkinsella

  

  Not a huge Jack Black fan anyway so didnt do much for me. Just an ok film. Not really worth a trip to the cinema for but not the worst movie evr.

• • Currently 1/5 Stars.

  asho87

  

  So so so bad :(

• • Currently 1/5 Stars.

  masonica

  

  Warning! This film may make you hate the kids that begged you to bring them to this dreck.

• • Currently 2/5 Stars.

  phoebe

  

  Unless you totally LOVE Jack Black playing himself don't waste your time seeing this movie. Its not funny and I was bored watching it.

• • Currently 1/5 Stars.

  iBOC

  

  rubbish...rubbish...rubbish....If you like Jack Black you'll probably like it. But then again if you like Jack Black your standards are so low you probably like everything.

• • Currently 2/5 Stars.

  maircc

  

• • Currently 1/5 Stars.

  Bigeamo

  

  Truly awful. The only positive is that my 10 year old thought it was "ok", I just wanted to hurl.

• • Currently 1/5 Stars.

  Randy

  

  I went to see this because I used to like Jack Black in some of the roles he's done. I also loved the 1939 cartoon version as well as the book, which is much more than a children's tale and this film does it no justice. At mere 86 minutes, it is a far too short and a 3D-driven lackluster spectacle of mediocrity. The story was predicable, references to popular culture - way too many and therefore unfunny. I kept saying to myself: "what was Emily Blunt thinking?" and "how could someone have written such an awful script?" I can identify with my 5-year-old nephew who previously wouldn't stop saying how much eh loved Black, and eventually became upset and wanting to head home,getting scared and hating Black, and so we left well before the end.

• • Currently 3/5 Stars.

  WildRose86

  

  Enjoyable story of poor Gulliver giong off and finding the Little People, in an attempt to win a girl and better himself. Jack Black doing his nerdy rock star wannabe thang. Nice cast of extras knocking about. Easy going yet no need for 3D.

• • Currently 3/5 Stars.

  enigmab17

  

  Personally I quite enjoyed it for the most part...not the best piece of film ever but kept my brain from concetrating on the pounding migraine i had at the time I found the story to be quite good, some of the acting was terrible, and for having such a large cast of experienced and skilled actors it seemed a pity to under-utilise them to the extent that they were. Anyway it got a laught or 2 so deserves 3 stars for effort, it was however too gappy in places in regards to the story etc.