Probably there were too many expectations, mostly due to the hammering marketing campaign, but Gulliver’s Travels is not what a lot of people might think.
Essentially it’s a family/kids movie, with a very linear and predictable plot, no unexpected twists, a few script-holes, lightly funny gags, and of course, Jack Black doing his usual thing. Visually there are some amazing sequences – Gulliver rope-trapped on the shore, or the final showdown à la Power Rangers – and most of the movie is quite cool-looking thanks to the effect giant-Jack-Black vs teeny-tiny-Lilliputians; but this is what everybody knew even before entering the screening. The expectations were all for the new plot and twists, but once the movie is underway it is immediately clear that it is going to be a Jack-Black-ego’s travel to Lilliput. For as much as I can enjoy the talented and eclectic actor, his cumbersome presence and the excessive comical take on the story slowly kill the movie, and the other characters don’t stand out how they should. The constant references to other movies or music, and the final message against war, are rather funny and entertaining, but like the rest of the movie they are predictable and not too original, also leading to suspect a self-promoting strategy by 20th Century Fox. If they wanted to modernize the myth of Gulliver’s Travels making it funnier and more humorous, they failed. It is neither.
