Gulliver's Travels (2010)

So earlier this week, I took my cousin to a movie for her birthday. As she was the birthday girl, I told her to pick what flick we saw. She chose Gulliver's Travels, which was fine by me, since I'm a big fan of Jack Black.

To start off, I wasn't aware it was a 3D picture until they handed us the glasses on the way in, and I honestly was a little put off by it at first. I'm not a big believer in the "Avatar was Huge, Let's Make every movie 3D" philosophy in Hollywood these days. However, after the first ten minutes or so, it felt pretty natural, if only I didn't have to wear those Roy Orbison looking glasses.

Anyway, the story is a modern retelling of the classic tale of Gulliver's Travels. Here, our modern Gulliver works in the mail room at a New York newspaper. He seems largely content with his life until a new guy in the mail room gets promoted past him the same day he is hired. New guy also picks up on the fact that Gulliver has been crushing on the paper's Travel writer Darcy Silverman, played by Amanda Peet (and who can blame him? Have you seen The Whole 9 Yards? But I digress.) Gulliver attempts to ask her out, but ends up chickening out and claiming to be a freelance travel writer himself. She asks to see a sample of his work, which he plagiarizes out of desperation, then sends him on an assignment to the Bermuda Triangle. Once there, he quickly gets transported to Lilliput, where he is a giant compared to the island's tiny residents. There's a lot of ludicrous stuff that happens from there, but it's a fantasy movie, so I let it slide.

While I can't say that the movie is Laugh-a-minute Funny, I have to say it is entertaining and amusing. As a modern version of the classic story, it holds up fairly well. The cast of the film was very impressive to me as well. Billy Connoly of Boondock Saints, Catherine Tate of Doctor Who (who is painfully underutilized here), and Most of all Chris O'Dowd famously of the IT Crowd. There is something about Chris O'Dowd that made me laugh out loud almost every time he spoke, he was really the highlight of the film for me.



Overall, this film is not likely to win any awards, and I can't say that I'll ever see it again, but I still enjoyed it. I recommend it to those who want to see a 3d movie done well with some Jack Black hilarity.

6 How to Build Your Own Robot Magazines out of 10