经典小说改编 3D电影《格列佛游记》

    The great irony about Jonathan Swift’s 1726 novel, “Gulliver’s Travels,” is that librarians* and schoolteachers have often placed on the shelves of children’s books what is, in fact, a moral satire* of the corrupt* English society of his time and mankind’s proclivity* for irrationality* and vice over common sense and virtue.

    The latest film version, which comes from several filmmakers with backgrounds in animation*, casts Jack Black as a shy, ambition-challenged mailroom clerk for a New York newspaper.

    Black’s Gulliver has a long-standing crush on* a travel editor (Amanda Peet) but can never bring himself to ask her out. Goaded* by a colleague into approaching her, he winds up not with a date but with a travel assignment.

    That takes him to the Bermuda Triangle, where a storm washes him into an inter-dimensional portal that carries him to Lilliput, where parts of Swift’s tale take over. The kingdom is made to look somewhat like 18th century England and features mostly British actors.

    The tiny Lilliputians struggle to imprison this “giant,” but when he escapes, he performs heroic* deeds that save the people. Among these displays of bravery*, one actually borrowed from the original story, is the day when he puts out a fire in the royal palace by urinating* on the flames.

    Emboldened by his newly acquired size, Gulliver now exaggerates* his past, drawing on film culture to cast himself as the victorious hero of stories ranging from “Star Wars” to “Titanic.” Like most studio-generated comedies, its hero must follow a path that confronts him with his character flaws and improves his defective* personality.

    Gulliver is also involved in a romantic triangle featuring the island’s princess (Emily Blunt), her military suitor (Chris O’Dowd) and the commoner (Jason Segel) who really loves her. When Peet’s character somehow turns up in Lilliput, the movie truly loses direction.

    (SD-Agencies)