GULLIVER'S TRAVELS- Review

It's as bad as it looks. And worse.

Huh.

Sometimes I just...

Right, let's start with story, shall we? Theoretically, the story of Gulliver's Travels, created by Jonathan Swift to subtly satirise government and politics so as to avoid being executed for his views, is a travelogue by Lemuel Gulliver. Gulliver is shipwrecked in a country where the inhabitants are 1/12 of his height, and variously travels to several other weird and wonderful places as the narrative progresses and Swift's critiques of the established order are embellished.

In Gulliver's Travels, a film from the makers of Shrek and Monsters vs. Aliens, the tale is modernised to centre around Jack Black as the now more implausibly named Lemuel Gulliver, an dislikeable bumbag who is never going to get out of the rut of employment he's nestled into at the New York Tribune. After resorting to shameless measures with the travel editor to bag a writing assignment in the Bermuda Triangle, Gulliver winds up shipwrecked in Lilliput. And that's where any manner of faithfulness to the text ends.

I'm only putting the gloves on for the advertising. To go into a rant about how it's stupidly over-exposed in trailers and adverts, like The A-Team before it, belies how apt the advertising actually was. It was crude, it looked terrible, and I for one wanted nothing more than for it to fuck off and die every time it assaulted my eyes and brain. That's pretty much how Gulliver's Travels, the movie, turns out. Some honest fellow in 20th Century Fox's marketing department deserves a quicker death than his cohorts in this enterprise. 

Gulliver's Travels is bad. And I mean, really bad. That salient point is the only way I can quickly get across my thoughts and feelings on this utter train-wreck of a motion picture. It is without wit, without irony, without innovation and without thought or feeling for anyone silly enough to pay cash money to see it. More notably however, it's without laughs. The kids in the screening I caught will testify to that. I'm not making this up- many of them laughed at the trailers before the film, for coming attractions like Gnomeo and Juliet and Yogi Bear, and at the Ice Age short that played before the main feature. For the entire duration of the main attraction, the whole cinema was deathly silent. You'll have more fun reading about Jonathan Swift's descent into madness on Wikipedia is than watching this film.

But what's wrong with it specifically? Well, simply put, it's Gulliver's Travels a la Dreamworks. I have been harsh on Dreamworks in the past, but I am speaking literally here- one of the screenwriters worked on the first two Shrek films and the director is Rob Letterman, who made a decent job of last year's Monsters vs. Aliens. But think of everything that comes with a bad Dreamworks film. Inane pop culture references, repurposed but no less blatant product placement, unfunny jokes that aim no higher than the shins of the lowest common denominator, and most annoyingly in this case, Jack Black.

As a rule, I generally like Jack Black, no matter how much of a pounding he took in my estimation after A Clockwork Orange style consumption of that Orange advert for this film before each and every one of the 40 films I've seen in the cinema since August. The trouble is, his repetitive schtick can get sort of irksome, especially when you cast him as a character as flagrantly abominable as this film's rendition of Gulliver. People say he plays himself, but I can't quite believe the image of Jack Black in films is anything close to the man himself. Because otherwise no one would be able to stand working with him.

Towering over the cast of Liliputians as he does, there's a fair argument to be made that Black is acting in a different film to them, added in afterwards through the magic of green screens. Supporting players like Billy Connolly and Jason Segel and Emily Blunt and Catherine Tate and... well, most of the little people are better than films like this. Only James Corden seems on the same wavelength as Black, with the consequence that you actually root for Chris O'Dowd as the film's villain as he calls out Gulliver's every action for the bullshit that it really is.

It's even more of a wasted opportunity when you consider that there are no prominent grown-up adaptations of Swift's novel, which contains more invention and intelligence than anyone bothered with on this version. Nothing about it shows an understanding of the potential of the source material. Too often, themes of corruption and war are glossed over by the need for apparently box-ticking sequences involving Jack Black playing Guitar Hero with little people, or pretending that Star Wars is the story of his life (and even that idea has been done elsewhere), or fighting a Transformer, or having a fucking song and dance number.

And so its lack of irony actually becomes something quite interesting. Look at that supporting cast again- they're all English, except for Jason Segel who makes a good stab at an English accent. Along with his rambunctious nature and ego issues, Black's Gulliver brings with him the worst parts of American culture. To get political for a moment in a vain effort to reclaim the original text's perspective, is it possible that with David Cameron installed in government with the aid of News International, Murdoch subsidiary 20th Century Fox sees Britain as an island of little people who gratefully take what we're spoon-fed via cultural imperialism? As a commentary on hegemony, it could be quite fascinating. However, it's supposed to be Night At The Museum, and it's actually a big pile of shite.

If this version of Gulliver's Travels hadn't been made, someone would have made it up as a joke. Indeed, I know many people who were initially confused by the Orange adverts for this film, believing it to be a joke trailer in the vein of the company's previous campaigns about Danny Glover's Dial Hard or Sean Astin's Lord of the Ringtones. The trouble is, it does exist, and it's hard to find anything funny about this film's existence. Gulliver's Travels is rotten- plain and simple. It is assembly line fodder of the most outright stupid kind, and nothing brings me more cheer at the end of 2010 than to see this film failing to make bank. Keep up the good work by staying at home, away from its awfulness, and 2011 will look a lot brighter.

Gulliver's Travels is now showing in 2D and 3D, at cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen Gulliver's Travels, why not share your comments below? If you're wondering where this places on my bottom 10 list, rest assured it's on there- come back soon to find out what the other 9 are...

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

The Final Reel: Historically Challenged

Yup, this is the last time you'll see these blog posts headed with the admittedly not-very-good pun "The Reel Deal". That ship has sailed, and it's time for a rebrand, the theme of which has already been glimpsed in my Transformers 2 review. But for now, I'm going to review two films set around about the same time period, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs and Year One, both of which would come under rather intense scrutiny from any Oxbridge scholar looking into their historical accuracy. But then I suppose most Oxbridge scholars know that animals don't speak English, and so films are usually exempt from such quibbles. Let's just say Ridley Scott clearly never worked on either of these films.

Reviews, as ever, shall contain minor spoilers, but not so far as to ruin your enjoyment of the films in question if you haven't seen them yet.

ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS


Who's in it? It's a cartoon of course, so we get the returning voice talents of John Leguizamo, Ray Romano and Denis Leary from the first two and a new voice in the form of the excellent Simon Pegg.

What's it all about? Sid the sloth (Leguizamo) is getting broody as his herd moves on in life- Manny (Romano) is soon to become a father and Diego (Leary) is off to regain his self-esteem as a predator. He steals three eggs he finds embedded in the ice with the aim of mothering them, but discovers they belong to a dinosaur, who aren't as extinct as first thought.

Any good? I've been groaning for months at the mention of this film. I love the first Ice Age, but felt the second was a step too far. The only really accomplished studio when it comes to animated sequels is Pixar, and Ice Age: The Meltdown did nothing to change this. But most of all, that title. "Dawn of the Dinosaurs?!", I wailed. "Dawn of-- the Ice Age came after the dinosaurs! What's wrong with cinema today? I-- hey, where did all my friends go?" Having coaxed one of my startled companions back to the cinema, I went in with some trepidation. I expected little more than the first sequel, but this time in 3D. The continually irksome glasses aside, this film actually wasn't that bad.

It's certainly not comedic genius. The first film was really good, in my opinion- it seemed to show promising things from the then-new studio Blue Sky, and it's one of the better animated films of the last decade or so. This instalment doesn't measure up to that but it's certainly a lot better than its immediate predecessor, even if it does reprise the most annoying of the new characters from that film. For starters, they took the dinosaur thing in a direction I certainly wouldn't have thought they'd manage. Rather than just have dinosaurs wander around all this time, it emerges that they're hiding under the ice, a la Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. In aping that it's obviously not massively original, but it displays more thought than I anticipated. As far as plot goes, it's much the same as the previous two- the makeshift herd that comprises the main characters go on a trek to recover/deliver one of their friends to safety.

Nevertheless, it supersedes the second film because it's funnier, plain and simple. Yes, it's still not as clever in its humour as Ice Age, but makes up for it with copious amounts of Simon Pegg. Buck is a debonair weasel who guides our heroes through the underground world with more than an implied degree of madness, and Pegg voices him with great aplomb. The film is still a little too reliant on the continuing frustrations of Scratt, the acorn-hungry squirrel, who this time gets a female counterpart, imaginatively called Scratte. This brings nothing to the film that we haven't seen in the assorted Scrat appearances to date, but there's a genius interlude towards the end to the tune of "Alone Again Naturally" with its lyrics retooled from the acorn's point of view. I shit you not. More annoying and unfunny are the possums, Crash and Eddie, demonstrating Hollywood's continuing inability to create twin comic-relief characters that don't make me want to hurt myself and those around me.

As with several 3D animated films, the 3D doesn't really lend anything to Ice Age- Dawn of the Dinosaurs, but it's an inoffensive and mildly enjoyable addition to the series. There are too few big laughs for it to measure up to the original, but it's well-animated and Simon Pegg is the most enjoyable aspect.



YEAR ONE


Who's in it? Jack Black (Tropic Thunder), Michael Cera (Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist) and David Cross (Kung Fu Panda).

What's it all about? A hunter-gatherer team (Black and Cera) are expelled from their tribe right before it is invaded and enslaved by soldiers from the city of Sodom. The pair ineptly careen from biblical event to biblical event in an attempt to rescue the tribe.

Any good? Big budget comedies don't work. Perhaps I'm being absent-minded, but besides Tropic Thunder, I can't think of a single big-budget comedy from recent years that left any lasting impression. Jack Black was in Tropic Thunder, and yet here, he's doing a film that largely flounders. I did laugh occasionally, but not enough to call this a good comedy. I should say from the outset that I can't really criticise the film for not particularly sticking to the setting of its title like other reviewers have, because I'm an atheist and this is essentially based on the Old Testament- I already think its source material was a confused mess of mumbo-jumbo. Coming soon, Mark Harrison reviews the Bible, but now we're looking at this, which apparently aims to be a modern day version of Life of Brian. I hesitate to say that this is more like Epic Movie than Life of Brian, because as mentioned, I did laugh at Year One. Sadly it is closer to the works of Aaron Friedburg and Jason Seltzer than... who directed this? Harold Ramis?!

Harold Ramis, what are you doing? You directed Groundhog Day! To a lesser extent, you directed Analyse This! You're a fucking Ghostbuster! Where did you go so wrong with this? Just to put this in perspective for those of you who are scratching your head at the mention of Sodom in the synopsis, Harold Ramis has made a film where the heroes are out to save the city of Sodom- you know, the one God struck down and which later gave its name to practises inventively explored in Brüno- from slavery. Not that I'm anti-gay, but I didn't like the confused message they were trying to get across about Sodom. Jack Black rambunctiously says he doesn't see the bad thing about Sodom- are they saying standards have slipped in the last 2000 years? It only gets more garbled with an out-of-place subplot about the existence of God, and you suddenly realise that every good comedy in the last few years (with the exception of Tropic Thunder) has remained more or less rooted in the real world. Surreal historical comedy is more or less a dead genre, until the Python crew revisit it, and that's incredibly unlikely.

As for the cast, their roles are overwhelmingly limited to separate Bits, a la last month's Night at the Museum 2. Paul Rudd has a Bit, Hank Azaria has a Bit and Ramis himself has his own little Bit. And in the centre of the film we have Jack Black and Michael Cera, and you'll never believe what they do. Jack Black is rambunctious (hence the use of the word in the last paragraph) and outrageous, while Michael Cera is awkward and shy. You know, the kind of performances those actors have never ever given before. Although I like Cera usually, both his and Black's tried-and-tested approaches are wearing thin, and you wish Azaria, Rudd and Ramis- all much more gifted comic actors- had been around more. Instead, their roles are cameos that cast little bits of light on Year One, a film that is otherwise largely disappointing and utterly forgettable.



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Right, that's pretty much is for now. The next post is coming very soon and will cover one film all to itself- some little film called Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. That revamp is on the way, and will definitely be in place by the time we get to the next of these two-review-blogs, but you can expect that the Harry Potter review will have some artwork from Fearn Sobers eventually, if not at the time the review is first posted.

Until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch,
Mark