Directed by Rob Letterman. Starring Jack Black, Jason Segel, Emily Blunt, Amanda Peet, Billy Connolly, Catherine Tate, Chris O’Dowd, Ozzy Osbourne PG cert, gen release, 90 min

WHERE have all the Houyhnhnms gone? Was a stint in Laputa too much to ask for? Avert your eyes, literature fans, from the year’s sketchiest screen adaptation.

We’re not surprised that Jonathan Swift’s notes on music, mathematics and equine perfection have been deemed surplus to requirements. This is, after all, a Jack Black Christmas movie, and Hollywood’s most agreeable chunky star was never going to leave much space for Swiftian barbs. The author’s allusions to unfortunate bottom collisions, on the other hand, have little trouble making the final cut.

Mostly, the links between this just about serviceable family comedy and the 1726 original are so tenuous one wonders why they bothered using the same title. Desperate to win the attentions of travel editor Amanda Peet, Lemuel Gulliver (Black) plagarises an article from Time Out,applies for a job and sets sail for an assignment in Bermuda. Instead he's shipwrecked on Lilliput, a kingdom inhabited by tiny versions of British comedians who soon come to love the rocking antics of their giant guest. Then they don't. It's complicated.

On its own terms, Gulliver's Travelsought to be called Gulliver's Bogus Journeyor Tenacious G. Black, an outsized screen presence in much smaller pictures than this one, is a good shout from the casting department; reliable talents like Catherine Tate and Chris O'Dowd prove there's no such thing as small parts even in miniature.

For all that, we can't help but think "must try harder". At 90 minutes, Gulliver's Travelsis less ramshackle and sprawling than the Night at the Museummovies, but this brevity says more about the project's half-arsedness than it does about wit.

The film is, as is customary for the age, rendered in 3D, but does so little with it that glasses are seldom required; the special effects are appallingly ropey; the script is gossamer at best, composed entirely around size-related sight gags and plugs for the iPhone. Oh look, it’s Fußball but with wee people. Just check out these awesome apps.

If only they had downloaded an application for better film-making.

Opens December 26th