Sixteen Years On, Jack Black’s Gulliver’s Travels Still Struggles to Find Its Own Scale

Jack Black plays Lemuel Gulliver as a depressed mail-room worker who plagiarizes a report and winds up in Lilliput, a tiny island ruled by Victorian-era society. That setup sounds like the kernel of a clever comedy. In practice, “Gulliver’s Travels” spends its 85 minutes running in circles around its own premise, and the film never finds the humor it promises.

Trailer, via 20th Century Studios Malaysia.

The Setup That Doesn’t Pay Off

Gulliver gets the assignment because he wants to impress his crush, journalist Darcy Silverman, and convince her he can write a report about his travels. He plagiarizes a report, and the next day Darcy, impressed by his writing, sends him to the Bermuda Triangle to write about ships mysteriously disappearing there. The storm, the waterspout, the landing on Lilliput — all of it sets up a premise where Gulliver’s size should be the joke. Instead, the film spends most of its runtime having Gulliver walk through a series of the same set pieces again and again.

The film is loosely based on Part One of Jonathan Swift’s 1726 novel, with a nod to Part Two. But the adaptation is so loose that it barely resembles the book. Gulliver is not a sailor blown off course by a storm, he is a bored office worker who plagiarizes a report and gets washed up on a strange shore. That shift changes the whole meaning of the story, and the film never seems to notice.

The Cast Carries What the Writing Drops

The supporting cast is strong enough to make the film watchable even when the script stumbles. Jason Segel plays Horatio, the tallest man in Lilliput, and his friendship with Gulliver is the film’s best running gag. Emily Blunt is Princess Mary, and she plays her capture and rescue scenes with a dignity that the script often doesn’t give her. Amanda Peet is Darcy Silverman, Gulliver’s girlfriend, and Billy Connolly is King Theodore, the king of Lilliput and Mary’s father. Chris O’Dowd plays General Edward Edwardian, the commander of the Lilliput Army, and T.J. Miller is Dan Quint. James Corden is Jinks, and Catherine Tate is Queen Isabelle, the queen of Lilliput and Mary’s mother. Olly Alexander plays Prince August, the prince of Lilliput and Mary’s brother.

That’s a lot of names, and the film barely knows what to do with half of them. The movie introduces a full royal family and then mostly ignores them. The only character who gets a real arc is Gulliver himself, and even his arc is thin.

What Works and What Doesn’t

The film’s biggest problem is repetition. Once Gulliver is on Lilliput, the movie spends too much time showing him walking through the same streets, talking to the same guards, and getting caught in the same fights. Each sequence looks the same as the one before it, and the jokes land less each time. By the time the Blefuscian Navy lays siege to the city, the audience has already heard this story three times.

There are a few moments that work. The scene where Gulliver saves King Theodore from a fire by urinating on it is genuinely funny, and it plays as a physical gag rather than a verbal one. The film also commits fully to its tagline, “Black is the new big,” and leans into Jack Black’s larger-than-life physicality in a way that matches the premise. But those moments are rare.

The film’s tone is also inconsistent. Some scenes play as broad comedy, with Gulliver’s size treated as a source of constant absurdity. Other scenes try to build drama around the war between Lilliput and Blefuscia, and they fall flat because the stakes feel arbitrary. The movie never settles on whether it wants to be a kids’ comedy or a satire of political conflict, and that indecision shows in every scene.

The Running Time That Doesn’t Help

At 85 minutes, “Gulliver’s Travels” is a short film. That should be a virtue — a short running time means the movie can’t waste time. But the film uses its brevity as an excuse to rush, not as a tool to tighten its focus. Scenes that should be one minute long stretch to three or four, and the pacing suffers for it.

The film also struggles with scale. Gulliver is a giant, and the movie should use that difference to create visual contrast. Instead, the film often flattens the difference between Gulliver and the Lilliputians, treating them as roughly the same height when they aren’t. That decision undercuts the whole premise.

Why the Reviews Were So Negative

The film grossed $237.4 million worldwide on a budget of $112 million, which suggests the movie made a profit. But the critical reception was harsh, and it’s easy to see why. The film’s negative reviews were not a surprise, given how thin the script feels.

Here’s a rough ranking of the elements that work best:

1. The physical comedy, especially the urination scene
2. The cast chemistry between Black and Segel
3. The commitment to the “Black is the new big” premise
4. The visual scale, when it’s used at all
5. The war between Lilliput and Blefuscia, which never coheres

The film is at its best when it trusts its premise and its actors. It’s at its worst when it tries to be something bigger than a simple comedy of size. The result is a film that’s occasionally funny but rarely smart, and a premise that’s wasted on a script that can’t figure out what to do with it.

“Gulliver’s Travels” is a missed opportunity. Jack Black is a gifted physical comedian, and the premise is a great one. But the film never figures out how to connect those two things, and the result is a movie that’s fun to watch for five minutes and exhausting for the rest of its running time.

The film debuted in Spain on December 22, 2010, and was theatrically released in the United States on December 25, by 20th Century Fox. It received negative reviews, and grossed $237.4 million worldwide on a budget of $112 million.

2010 films · comedy review · Gulliver's Travels · Jack Black · movie review