Gulliver's Travels 2010

David Germain, Associated Press: The movie was needlessly converted to 3-D. The images are not blurry and distracting as some 3-D conversions have been, but neither are they terribly impressive, adding nothing but a few extra dollars to the price of a ticket. Read more

James Rocchi, MSN Movies: ...the traditional problem of big-budget family entertainment arises, where the grown-up jokes are too grown-up for the younger kids in the audience and the jokes for kids are too insipid and simplistic to appeal to grown-ups. Read more

David Fear, Time Out: Even past youth-friendly adaptations kept enough of the book's bite that you could recognize the Swiftian satire. This update is merely a swift kick to the nuts. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: What were they thinking? What were they smoking? What were they singing on the way to the bank? Read more

Nathan Rabin, AV Club: Like its protagonist, Gulliver's Travels is big, dumb, and slow-moving, a lumbering oaf of a movie that just barely makes it to feature-length via a groaningly unnecessary production number set to Edwin Starr's "War." Read more

Scott Craven, Arizona Republic: The film stumbles along a predictable path, and there is an audible wince when Gulliver says, "These little people have grown large in my heart." Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: A migraine inducement that you'd think Jack Black had gotten out of his system years ago. Read more

Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader: [Black] doesn't have much going for him besides pop-culture references and his own looming girth.. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: The cast is enjoyable, with Jason Segel (as Gulliver's lil' pal, Horatio) and Emily Blunt (the local princess) a witty cut above for this sort of thing. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: A movie of such stupendous uninspiration that, watching it, I didn't know whether to be affronted or hornswoggled. Movies this monumentally dreadful, after all, don't come along every day. Read more

Keith Staskiewicz, Entertainment Weekly: Gulliver's Travels strips the source material down to its recognizable parts and then builds something completely new out of them. Unfortunately, the result is entirely Lilliputian in ambition, even for a children's movie. Read more

Eric D. Snider, Film.com: There is laziness at every turn -- in the writing, in the acting, in the filmmaking. Don't reward these yahoos. Read more

Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter: An effects-driven children's movie enlivened by Jack Black but deadened by over reliance on those effects. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: "Gulliver's Travels" is one of those movies that falls between complete disaster and loads of fun. Mild amusement is probably about right. Read more

Nick Pinkerton, L.A. Weekly: Black, looking like an unwashed clothes pile and capering in familiar "Uncle Jack" style, is a good babysitter. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: I mean - really - do you have a burning desire to see Jack Black's buttocks? Blown up, in the land of Lilliput, to 12 times their normal size? I didn't think so. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: It all feels so lazy and familiar that adults may find themselves hoping Black will start to challenge himself again -- and the more swiftly the better. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: Black was already the world's biggest little kid, and he might be the only actor who could have made this movie such nimble fun. No matter how thin the concept, Black always manages to make it his own. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: I was but seldom inspired to peals of true laughter, though I did relish that part when Mr. Black, confronting a fire raging in the Palace of Lilliput, douses the blaze through heroic use of such means as Nature has provided him. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Even at 83 minutes (plus a three minute cartoon) it's a drag, another 3D movie for kids in which the 3D adds nothing, merely subtracting from parents' wallets. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: A murderously unfunny rethink of the groundbreaking literary satire. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: The chief sin committed by Gulliver's Travels is not that it's a poor adaptation but that its entertainment value is almost nonexistent. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: This is live action, and despite the 3-D, it's sorta old-fashioned, not that that's a bad thing. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: [A] dumb excuse for a movie. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Somewhere by the middle, the souffle collapses, and the movie becomes sleep-inducing. Gulliver doesn't have much to do in Lilliput, and we notice that before he does. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Some films are phoned in. The staggeringly awful "Gulliver's Travels" was texted. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: For a novel written nearly 300 years ago by a dour Irish cleric with a mad-on about the material world and a satiric mindset dark enough to flirt with misanthropy, it's amazing how well Gulliver's Travels travels. Read more

Linda Barnard, Toronto Star: The verdict on Jack Black's mock-rock take on Gulliver's Travels? Not too Swift. Read more

Derek Adams, Time Out: Mostly it veers between the very mildly chucklesome and plain not funny. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Kids might enjoy some of Black's wacky antics, but adults will tire of them fast. Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: A classic ready-made for the era of big-budget 3D spectacle gets the least classy treatment imaginable. Read more

Variety: Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: I will tell you there's a cast credit for a character described only as "Butt-crack man." Consider yourself warned. Read more