Tout est mal qui finit bien

The film opens up on Lemual Gulliver in Manhattan nowadays. The hero is shown here as a nerd/geek, unfamiliar with real life, guitar hero addict by night and mail clerk by day. Realizing his poor existence, his longer interaction with Darcy is based on a lie, followed by a three weeks journey in the bermuda triangle. The audience targeted couldn’t be anyone but kids. The humor sense seems to have sunk with Jack Black’s boat after his crash : the characters aren’t funny at all and even the actors look like they’re bored (just look at Emily Blunt, voir slide). The love story between Horatio and Princess Mary is a remix of the most classic known love stories like Romeo and Juliet plus la french touch Cyrano de Bergerac : There’s this scene where the Princess is on a balcony, being courted by Horatio downstairs, himself being dragged by Gulliver hiding behind the castle like a Cyrano not quoting love letters but pop-music. As big as his ego is and thinking himself as the new icon of Lilliput, the whole town is putting Gulliver on a pedestal, without foreseeing he would crush it himself.

The whole film is in a hole : Gulliver loses a first fight versus the very bad guy, loses faith in himself and is sent on another island, where he’s now the little man. The scenario only has time to let him not realize that he lied to his two worlds (Darcy and Liliput) in less than a month, losing everything but here he comes : Horatio arrives and barely asks for help. Gulliver pulls himself together, gets back to Liliput and saves everyone including his fiancé-to-be Darcy, giving us nothing else than a poorly sentimental and overseen ending : soulmates are meant to be, no matter how different or poor you are. Another conclusion would be : it’s okay to lie as long as you’re tall enough. The film does everything wrong : The dystopia barely appears, the “Gulliver’s travels” is really more “Gulliver travels”, it’s not even fun which was Rob Letterman’s goal, there’s nothing to compare with, speaking with the fact it’s an adaptation. All’s well it ends well, that’s the spirit.