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Rating: That Americans love a hell of a lot to replicate great classics through the ineffable camera, no one can deny: they are people who would go as far as to mount a remake of the Old Testament with a mega yacht instead of the Ark and Noah dressed like Snoop Dogg. Due to the creative crisis of the Studios, hence the famine of new ideas for scripts and original plots, the trend of the literary tome reduced to a parodic little film seems never to fade, much like grandma's pie or Santa Claus.
And so it is that long and exhausting pages of volumes infested with mites and dust transform into decent and mediocre feature films, perfect for masses not so inclined to digest literature who, nonetheless, do not miss the latest blockbuster hit. Stuffed with popcorn, they come to embrace a sort of "cultural education" on a large scale: by mixing literary greats with the naive benevolence of American entertainment, made of timid young semi-failures who miraculously demonstrate they possess qualities to defeat the villain on duty and win the love of their princess, even the most skeptical about books can gather - albeit with not particularly excellent techniques - some simple tidbits on knights, castles, Romeo & Juliet, Renzo & Lucia, etc. The comic, feel-good, and daft spirit infused by the American Way Of Life tends, however, to reign supreme: noble queens of hearts become hot playmates with diamond scepters and leopard print thongs, fearless leaders leave their equine pureblood in the stable and hop on a Harley, while the fearsome enemy is nothing but the classic swaggering, egocentric, and arrogant dude to humiliate mercilessly.
On Saturday nights when disco balls have a magnetic power equal to a lively summer rerun of Porta a Porta and the social drink at the pub starts to make even the most adamant about change yawn, it happens that our butts head towards the multiplex cinemas. And, magnetized by the charm of the glasses, the brain stimulates the limbs (upper and lower) to purchase tickets and head towards theaters projecting these masterpieces. Like, for example, "The Fantastic Voyages of Gulliver".
The famous character, born from Swift's pen, is entrusted to the interpretation of rocker Jack Black, as well as inserted into the globalized ride of the Big Apple: a bland and timid corporate mailman devoid of certainties and semi-depressed, as per the finest American tradition. In a feature film where the pseudo-feudal Lilliput evolves, at the will of this irreverent little man, into New York 2.0 (equipped with neon signs and posters exalting Michael Jackson and Avatar, all in merry company) and even robots appear among baroque residences and enchanted fortresses, Gulliver will manage to defeat the apathy of the average Yankee and fulfill his love dream with the most flirty colleague of the company.
All fun, sure: but can these cinematic simplifications of western literature milestones prove useful to their correct understanding? Difficult, if not impossible, to attribute any value, other than pure amusement, to a film that shamelessly overlays the present-day, hyper-technological and advanced world with contexts completely different for mentality and philosophy of life. Seeing Gulliver with All-Stars, the iPhone, and the Radar talking about chicks and teaching the Lilliputians to "high five" may make one smile, but nothing more. The "culture" of the daring past-present-future mix undoubtedly guarantees substantial receipts, but simultaneously it values little or poorly the work of man over the centuries, as well as his mental evolution and consciousness. In front of the box office, however, it seems the last of the concerns.
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