Movies Reviews

Gulliver’s Travels A Flawed Film

MELAKA, Malaysia — Gulliver’s Travels, a feature comedy film released on Christmas Day, is Lilliputian.
The modern-day version of Jonathan Swift’s famous book features Lemuel Gulliver (Jack Black) working in the mailroom of a newspaper office.
After a series of incidents, Gulliver is sent to the Bermuda Triangle on a writing assignment – and, not surprisingly, winds up lost in a storm.
He washes up on the island of Lilliput, where the people are tiny.
Later, he lands on another island, Brobdingnag, where giants live.
Readers of Swift’s book will notice that Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib, Japan and Houyhnhnms are never even mentioned.
It was as if the producers had cut out three-quarters of the original story.
That might have been fine except the filmmakers sought to cram the story into 85 minutes, badly slaughtering the original story.
Despite some interesting comedy scenes, parts of the tale were ambiguous and the ending unsatisfactory.
The movie gave too much attention to Lilliput and too little to Brobdingnag, let alone the parts of the story that simply vanished.
Let’s hope that a more complete Gulliver’s Travels film will be made that can take the place of this disappointing, tiny version.

Evangeline Han is a Junior Reporter for Youth Journalism International.

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