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| Gulliver's Travels
Year: 1996
Classification: Action/Adventure
Directed:
- Charles Sturridge
A Lot Better Than I Thought It Would Be
I have to admit that when this version of "Gulliver's Travels" first appeared on TV I was reluctant to watch it. My main stumbling block was accepting Ted Danson in the lead role. Being a fan of Swift though I watched and was happily surprised at seeing Danson nicely carry off the part.BR>The production is nothing short of fantastic. Instead of digital technology being used to merely fill the screen with 1,000's of bodies it has been used to create the fantastic world of Swift's imagination. There are many a big budget movie that look like bargin basement production next to this. While one could never completely adapt Swift's book for the screen this production comes closer than most in giving us both the author's fantastic visions and social commentary. The cast has a wealth of fine actors both well know and some not so well known. Among them are Peter O'Toole, Sir John Gielgud, Geraldine Chaplin, Edward Woodward, Warwick Davies , James and Edward Fox and Omar Sharif. In director Charles Sturridge's skillful hands all of these fine elements come together for a very enjoyable and unforgettable film.
A true pleaser
I didn't see this movie when it first ran on television, but recently bought the DVD and saw it for the first time. For a made for tv production, it was very well done, with an excellent and stellar cast. Ted Danson does a wonderful job as the title character, inflecting his character with the proper touch of wonder, disbelief, incredulity, and disgust at the different lands and things he sees during his travels.
I have to admit I wasn't sure what I would think when I first started to watch. I had read the book many years ago, when I was in school, and didn't recall a lot of it. However, as the story progressed, I was happy to see that the more I saw, the more I remembered of what I had read, and that the movie seemed to follow the important parts of the book. The thing I had most remembered were the talking horses, and wondered how well they would do that, but it was done well, so I have no complaints on that score.
As I said, the actors all did a remarkably good job, and the special effects were decent, making Gulliver appear to be both huge in the land of the little people, and then small himself in the land of the giants.
First rate family entertainment, and well worth seeing. Do yourself a favor and get it for your collection.
Charming!
* Although video versions of Jonathan Swift's classic satire GULLIVER'SBR>TRAVELS have been done before, most prominently the prewar Fleischer animatedBR>version, NBC felt the need to do a TV miniseries on the story. The resultBR>turned out to be surprisingly interesting.
The producers did try, with little success, to impose a "personal interest"BR>story on top of Swift's non-stop satire, with Dr. Lemuel Gulliver (TedBR>Danson) held in a lunatic asylum in reaction to the wild stories he told ofBR>his journey, with his wife (Mary Steenbergen) trying to rescue him. That isBR>all neither here nor there, because it really doesn't either add much or getBR>in the way of the real story. Similarly, the fact that Danson's LemuelBR>Gulliver isn't all that inspired isn't a problem, because even in Swift'sBR>original he was little more than a narrator anyway.
All that said, however, this video production actually remains more true toBR>Swift's vision than other productions, in particular including (if in a briefBR>fashion) Gulliver's later voyages, such as to the floating city of Laputa.BR>The story is presented much as Jonathan Swift intended it -- as a scathingBR>and somewhat sanctimonious condemnation of human venality -- but it is stillBR>entirely charming.
Much of this was due to excellent special effects. For example, Dr. GulliverBR>reaches around the dome of a building in miniature Lilliput, and pigeons theBR>size of insects flutter away from his fingertips. Hwowever, shortBR>appearances by well-known faces such as Omar Sharif and Geraldine ChaplinBR>(appearing lovely in Indian-style sari as the wife of the Rajah of Laputa,BR>complaining about the dullness of the learned and enjoying Gulliver's companyBR>as an "ordinary unintelligent male") and the wit of Swift's story (theBR>intellectuals of Laputa are batted by their servants to bring their attentionBR>back to reality when needed) also help carry it very well.
I keep wondering if anyone ever decided to come up with a new printing ofBR>GULLIVER'S TRAVELS that uses the picture-pretty imagery from the NBCBR>production as illustrations. GULLIVER'S TRAVELS is a great book but a oldBR>one, and such marvelous illustrations would help make it more accessible to aBR>modern audience. [Update of review from 1996.]
Buy Gulliver's Travels at Amazon.com
Buy posters at Allposters.com
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