Gulliver's Travels [DVD]

Gulliver's Travels is about as marginal as the trailers suggest; it's a tepidly entertaining, irreverent, and sometimes crass comedy starring Jack Black that takes some gigantic liberties with Jonathan Swift's classic story about the land of Lilliput and its tiny inhabitants. Mailroom loser Lemuel Gulliver (Jack Black) is stuck in a dead-end job and living a dead-end life until the promotion of a fellow employee spurs him to speak up and take action. While a trip to the Bermuda Triangle may not be the date with crush Darcy Silverman (Amanda Peet) that Gulliver had envisioned, the voyage promises to take his career in a new direction, and it eventually delivers him to a kingdom known as Lilliput, which is populated by miniature people. After initially being captured and locked away in a dungeon, Gulliver wins the hearts of the Lilliputian people by saving their princess (Emily Blunt) from being kidnapped and rescuing their king (Billy Connolly) from a fire in a most unorthodox and unsavoury way, and he quickly finds himself in a position of gigantic influence. Problem is, Gulliver is completely unprepared and unqualified for his new leadership roles, both on the personal and professional levels, and his ineptitude puts himself and all of Lilliput in extreme danger. Grade-school humour abounds in this fairly mindless film, something Jack Black always excels at, but viewers will find that the chuckles and the message about the power of believing in oneself fade equally as fast as the credits roll. (Ages 9 and older) --Tami Horiuchi