Who's In It: Jack Black, Amanda Peet, Emily Blunt, Jason Segel, Billy Connolly, Catherine Tate, Chris O'Dowd
The Basics: When a storm overtakes Gulliver's boat and washes him ashore Liliput, a land of tiny little people, he's not only a physical giant among them, he also creates a mythic godlike status for himself by manufacturing a personal history based on stolen movie plots. In their eyes he's combination of Han Solo, Leo in Titanic and Sam Worthington in Avatar. But an evil General conspires to eliminate Gulliver and sets in motion a series of events to expose his lies, events that somehow results in Gulliver battling a Transformer. If you're six years old it will all make perfect sense.
What's The Deal: As terrible kid's movies go, this one is just run-of-the-mill terrible, meaning that it does exactly what its target audience wants it to do and offers nothing in the way of entertainment to anyone else. The hero's journey, the generic and dated-by-2011 pop culture references, the blatant gag-stealing from movies like Shrek, the shoehorning of a giant fighting robot into the last act--none of it is for people old enough to read this review. It's a product for undemanding children to consume, one they'll forget pretty quickly after leaving the theater.
Jack Black, Executive Producer Of This Movie, Wants To Sing. Therefore, He's Going To Sing: Remember when he was in Tenacious D and he sang goofy songs and it was funny? Remember when he was in High Fidelity and he sang and it was funny? Well, your kids don't. So it's important that they learn about Jack Black's singing ability. And you needed reminding too. Doesn't matter that it's a bit just dropped into the back end of the movie for no good reason or that it's effectively a desperate running-time stretch, a lazy nonsense way to cap a lazy nonsense movie. It's the privilege of the executive producer to make these kinds of decisions.
Featuring The Wasted Talents Of: A lot of cool British comic actors like Catherine Tate, Chris O'Dowd and Billy Connolly. Emily Blunt plays Liliput's princess and she's got not much to do either; neither does Amanda Peet. And then there's the usually really funny Jason Segel, who tries his best to fake a Brit accent and comes off sounding worse than Kevin Costner in Robin Hood.
3D Or Not 3D: If you're obligated to take some children, find a theater where it's not screening in 3D. Nothing pops off the screen like you want. It's a ticket-inflating move. Save your cash.