The updated metformin side effects in men Jack Black version of the classic Gulliver’s Travels is one of the worst things that I have ever seen. Not in movies, but period. One of the worst things I have ever seen period. I saw this film for free, at a press screening with complimentary popcorn and drinks and I still felt cheated. I legitimately feel like I have aged. Fragments of my childhood are no longer as easy to recall as they used to be. Tastes and colors have paled. There is a frown on my forehead that I fear has now become permanent. I thought about it on the way home and here is what I consider to be a conclusive list of things that are worse than this movie:
1. The holocaust
2. The nuclear metformin hcl 500 mg dosage bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima
3. Famine
4. Rape
5. Pol Pot’s genocide of Cambodians
6. The Mariah Carey music video for “Heart Breaker”
And that’s about it.
I don’t know who Amanda Peet’s agent is but if he thinks that he’s doing a good job then he must also be working for Nicolas Cage. 2012, X-Files, and now this? Who is this guy kidding? She would do better with a magic eight ball making her career decisions. Or a Wheel of Fortune type randomizer that she could paste a load of scripts to. Not that she will have many coming in after this. After associating herself with this travesty there are probably rogue third world dissidents with greater appeal to Hollywood casting agents. The assorted legion of the damned can expect more offer letters in hell than Peet can this summer.
I cannot even imagine how upset Emily Blunt must have been when Jon Faverau offered her the Black Widow role in the Iron Man and Avengers franchises only to find out that Fox intended to pick up the option in her contract to force her to make this disaster instead. So I have to feel a bit for her and won’t fault her for showing up in this debacle. Still, she can kiss that Devil Wears Prada goodwill goodbye. The least that you can usually say for a hot chick stuck in a crappy movie is that at least she reminded you that you were in love with her but she failed even in this modest capacity.
Jack Black, fingers crossed, may actually be done. I don’t know, I’m still thinking about it. I’ve enjoyed and even at times, loved my fair share of his films. High Fidelity, Be Kind Rewind, Tropic Thunder, School of Rock. I have nothing against him. But walking to the cinema I was wondering how long it would take him to air guitar and jump from one foot to the other saying some nonsense like “rigagoogoo rigagoogoo” like he does in every one of his films, and in Gulliver’s Travels, I swear, he literally is doing it before the opening credits finish showing up on screen. And he doesn’t let up. Except for some reason nothing he does is funny. I don’t know if his material was just off this time, or if the material itself has just run its course. Except I absolutely do know what the reason is – that he sucks.
Story-wise, the film maintains its horrible standards. Black squashes a guy with his bare ass in slow motion. Everything is stereotypical and stale. Jason Segel’s character woos a girl with the hilarious use of sassy dialogue that she doesn’t realize is song lyrics for what must surely be the six billionth time in a movie. I think this takes place during what this film terms its second act. I don’t know, I lost track of time. Gulliver’s Travels runs for about five hours. Or maybe that’s just how long it felt. Or maybe it was simply the number of times I tried to take my own life.
The first act of the film is your standard fare with a slacker devoid of ambition in love with the office cutie cue that you’ve seen so many times before. We’re whisked quickly to Gulliver in a boat heading into a storm and at this point the pacing is actually pretty good. But let’s not fool ourselves into thinking this fifteen minute stretch is anything greater than tolerable. And that is pretty much as good as it gets. If you were to plot my morale while watching this film on a horizontal graph it would look like one of those cliffs that cartoon characters run up to, stop, and then the last member of the group knocks the pack and they all tumble to their deaths. On a similar note I wish that I had tumbled to my death before I made it to this screening. At least that way I would still have both my dignity and the prolonged will to live.
And I’m fully aware of the “it’s made for kids” angle that some will surely play. But this film is indefensible, even with that usually bullet-proof zinger. Every gag falls flat. Every one. There were no “jokes” that I found lame but that I felt a child might plausibly find hilarious. Or even funny. The whole thing is just a big, fat, sad mess. It contains no great moments, not one hearty laugh and above all else, no respect for the classic original. There was, however, some pretty generous product placement. There’s actually one point where after pushing apple products with the subtlety of a mob lynching, Black actually picks up his iPod and marvels that “this thing can really take a beating”. Pretty ironic when you consider that he shot one of those Orange adverts that was predicated on his distaste for turning Gulliver’s Travels into a mobile phone commercial. No matter how many times you see it, I can never get over how awful it feels when creative work is diluted by things like that. Embarrassing, even. And if it weren’t for the lush can of Coca Cola that I was given at the screening, to simultaneously delight my tastebuds, quench my thirst and keep me awake, I might be even more incensed. It’s funny how much worse Pepsi tastes than Coca Cola when a lot of people think it is essentially the same thing. Those Coca Cola guys really got it right.
I guess the good thing about this movie is that it genuinely does break new ground. In the field of automated torture, that is. To my knowledge that kind of thing requires a man on hand to administer the torturing, whereas with Gulliver’s Travels all you need is a working television set and DVD player. The mind can only boggle at what this increased productivity this additional manpower around the world might yield.
Perhaps that is what’s important here.
Overall: 1/10
Directed by Rob Letterman. Written by Joe Stillman & Nicolas Stoller. Production Design by Gavin Bocquet. Cinematography by David Tattersall. Original Music by Henry Jackman. Edited by Alan Edward Bell, Maryann Brandon, Nicolas De Toth, & Dean Zimmerman.
Starring: Jack Black, Jason Segel, Emily Blunt, Amanda Peet, and Billy Connolly.
