Simply Perfect

Fresh and Exciting

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

The mini-series fully deserves 10 stars. The framing device - Gulliver comes back from sea, tells a wild tale of his experiences, is committed to an asylum, tells further wild tales on further occasions, and is finally vindicated - has no foundation in the book, but neither does it alter the substance of the tales Swift wrote. Another major change is in the ending. Unlike so many adaptations, the film tells of all four of Gulliver's voyages - it is not limited to Lilliput and Brobdingnag. The first and second are altered by having Gulliver's voyage from Lilliliput end, not in rescue by an English ship, but in landfall on the Brobdingnagian coast. It is implied that the two lands are a considerable distance apart, but the book has Lilliput and its enemy Blefuscu lie in the Indian Ocean, whereas Brobdingnag is a peninsula off the coast of Alaska. The deviation is an intelligent piece of adaptation, and typical of the care taken by the adaptors to make a film of the book, rather than of something rather distantly based on it. Special props to Warwick Davis, who turned in a thoroughly convincing performance as Gulliver's dwarf tormentor at the Brobdingnagian court, and to Tom Sturridge: that Gulliver has a son is sort of implied, since the book says he has children. Ted Danson made the part of Gulliver his own. He inhabited it as thoroughly as Basil Rathbone or Jeremy Brett have inhabited that of Sherlock Holmes.

At two hours, this could have been a very good movie but at three hours?? No, that's at minimum 40 minutes too long. The first hour of this is very good but after that it slowly loses steam. The flashback scenes are almost all interesting but when it gets back to the "current" story, Ted Danson drones on and on and on, trying to convince an unbelieving audience. By then, the viewer gets frustrated wondering if Danson's character "Lemuel Gulliver" will ever be believed and the conniving lying Dr. Bates (played well by James Fox) will ever be exposed for who and what he is.It's a very clean-language movie since it was a mini-series for television, and few people can argue with the "peace and love" message, but the it's long and frustrating to watch more than once.

This film is wonderful example of the quality dramas that Channel 4 and the BBC have produced over the years. Ted Danson delivers a powerful performance of a man tormented by memories noone will accept, and a society that believes he is insane. It is a remarkable performance by a man most known for his role in Cheers, a TV comedy sitcom. The supporting cast are all very well chosen, not least Mary Steenbergen, Danson's wife, who acts the part of Gulliver's wife in the film. But above all it is the seamless and very delicate shifts between our world and Gulliver's world that make this film. The difference in perspective between giants and midgets, all acted by real actors is beautifully captured. A rare treat of cinematography and direction.

Considering the rubbish Hallmark has come up with since, it's easy to forget how good this was. As an adaptation of the book, this is easily the best version, and is the only version to include all four parts of the book. (I do have one reservation, which will be addressed). Obviously, some satirical points are lost, as the book contains many 'topical' references to persons and occurrences from the early 18th Century which would go completely unnoticed nowadays by anyone who has not made an academic study of the book. The book had Gulliver make four separate voyages to each land, but here (as in most versions that include more than one part) Gulliver discovers all the lands in one long voyage. Whilst this removes a reasonably important aspect of the book's framing device (The progressively worse treatment of Gulliver by the ships crews reflect Gulliver's own estrangement from the human race) it does make the film flow better. The films own framing device allows much more information to be imparted, although I do believe too much time is spent on the back-story accompanying it.The Lilliputian and Brobdingnagian segments are very well done- all the major points covered in the book are dealt with very economically. It is with the next part that my reservation arises. Laputa, the Academy and the Glubbdubdrib necromancy are very well adapted, but the depiction of the immortal Struldbruggs show an incredible lack of courage. In the book, the Struldbruggs are cursed with immortality, but not eternal youth and depicts gibbering, desiccated husks millennia old. Here, the 'curse' of immortality is simply blindness, and totally betrays the book. However, this remains the first time (to my knowledge) that the Houyhnhnms section has been filmed, a section that has given Swift a reputation (probably undeserved) of being a misanthrope). Here, the odious Yahoos are kept as vile as they are in the book and, although the impact of the ending has been softened, the blow is still there.The film is very well done indeed, with perfect art design, costuming and atmospheric direction by Sturridge- the Glubbdubdrib section is brilliantly eerie. Ted Danson is nothing short of fantastic, in a studied yet emotional performance. Steenbergen is less memorable, but still effective. The star-studded supporting cast impresses throughout, especially to O'Toole's Lilliputian Emperor and Nicholas Lyndhurst's Clustril (it is oddly satisfying to have a lead actor in 'Cheers' sharing scenes with a lead actor from 'Only Fools and Horses!) The music is perfect, with the rousing theme music, the Indian- influenced but otherworldly Laputan music and the primitive percussion of the Yahoo sections.In summary, this is a great, though qualified success. There will never be a film version that does full justice to the book, but this is as close as we're probably going to get.