In his 2009 book “Eating the Dinosaur,” cultural commentator Chuck Klosterman makes the following claim as an apologetic segue into a rant about sitcom laugh tracks: “There’s one kind of writing that’s always easy: picking out something obviously stupid and reiterating how stupid it obviously is. This is the lowest form of criticism, easily accomplished by anyone.”
It’s an interesting point. But I would counter that at the time that sentence was written, the abomination that is the latest film adaptation of Jonathan Swift’s classic story had not yet been shot. It had not yet been released to the public on thousands of screens nationwide. And it had not yet committed a $42 million robbery of American families hopeful for an hour or two of stimulating – or even moderately entertaining – fantasy fare.
I can think of plenty of words to describe “Gulliver’s Travels,” but one that sticks out is “exploitative.” It’s not just that it’s a terrible kid-friendly movie. That sort of project happens all the time. But Swift’s book is a satire written in the 18th century that’s still read today.
The movie borrows a name parents could reasonably expect to associate with something well-written and layered, or at least thought-provoking and coherent. But no. Instead, they got a washed-up Jack Black (“Year One”) as the titular Lemuel Gulliver, dancing around in cargo shorts, breaking things and shouting a bunch for no real reason.
Gulliver, as useless in his fictional mailroom job as Black has become in his real-life acting career, cheats and lies his way into an opportunity to travel to check out the Bermuda Triangle. He ends up on the Island of Lilliput, where the natives are earnest, big-hearted, fairy-sized humans who, for some reason, are essentially stuck in the British Colonial era.
Actually, the reason is no mystery. It’s lazy screenwriting and unnecessary deviation from source material. Anyway, by taking advantage of his size and knowledge of the modern-day world, Gulliver ascends to hero status with the help of his diminutive friend Horatio (Jason Segel, “Despicable Me”). However, he must then face the clich?d responsibility that comes with his unearned power.
It’s truly awful stuff – not just poorly made and lazy, but boring, too. It’s the kind of movie for which the best hope would be to shoot for “so bad it’s good” status. But it fails even that. So with apologies to Klosterman, I refuse to let “Gulliver’s Travels” off the hook – to do so could risk contributing to its success in some small way, and I want to be able to sleep at night.
However, that means the question is still on the table: What is the proper role of a critic? Does a person writing about culture (high, low, pop or otherwise) have an obligation to point out the bright spots in, say, a trashy straight-to-DVD horror movie? And what about the flaws in an Oscar winner?
“The King’s Speech” follows the story of Prince Albert, Duke of York (Colin Firth, “A Christmas Carol”), as he fights his socially and politically crippling stammer by adhering to the methods of his unorthodox speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffry Rush, “Legends of the Guardians: The Owls of Gahool”).
Set against the build-up to World War II in Europe, Albert – who later becomes King George VI – needs to be able to effect a calm, unhesitating voice to reassure the British people of their country’s stability and superiority. The majority of the movie uses the familiar plot line pitting uncompromising teacher against reluctant-but-gifted pupil, but there’s enough royal intrigue and historical allusions to convince even the most jaded viewer that “The King’s Speech” isn’t just a dressed-up, proper-sounding “Coach Carter.”
Critics adored the film from the get-go. Roger Ebert, the professor emeritus of the current critical class, attributed its success in equal measures to the subject matter and the directorial hand of Tom Hooper (“The Damned United”). Ebert calls Hooper’s decisions on one particular scene “masterful,” and suggests the narrow rooms in which the movie is set could have been chosen on purpose, to “evok[e] the narrow, constricting walls of Albert’s throat as he struggles to get words out.”
Ebert’s review is similarly insightful throughout, but his positive outlook on the film is tampered somewhat by a surprising lack of comment on Firth’s performance. The actor, who won the Academy Award for the role, is required to be both entitled and self-loathing, to voice statements of immense gravity in timid, halting form.
To that end, Peter Travers, of Rolling Stone magazine, focused his attention on the performances of Firth and co-star Helena Bonham Carter (“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”). Travers proclaimed. “Firth’s nuanced performance is a thing of bruised beauty,” but virtually ignored Hooper’s work. Still another critic, Manohla Dargis of The New York Times, honed in on the imperfections in the movie’s representation of history but applauded the depth of the many characters on screen.
The lesson: Due to length limitations on printed work, a critic is often required to accentuate the strongest assets of an enjoyable film and point out the flaws in weaker efforts. There’s no denying the wisdom of Klosterman’s point, but for now I think I’ll wait for that book deal to come through before I give “Gulliver’s Travels” another chance.
Gulliver’s Travels: 0 stars; The King’s Speech: 4 stars out of 5. Lin Weeks is a junior majoring in economics. Upset with his omission of the DVD you were most excited about renting this week? Vent at [email protected].
