Alice in Wonderland

 

So Tim Burton made an Alice in Wonderland movie. Great. I got pretty excited when the first screen grabs came out; it looked like what I imagined a Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland movie would look; dark, gritty, and unsettling. I think at one point during the making of this film, it was just that. Then somebody decided that would be a bad idea and started emptying the crap bucket into holes created by the removal of the good parts.

So yeah, I didn’t like it. I didn’t see it in 3D which could be part of why it sucked, as the visuals seemed very soft and blurry, and the compositing of real-world elements was almost universally horrible. Very often the animations of some characters seemed awkward, which was probably what they were going for, but it didn’t work for me. For a movie that is primarily meant to be a visual work it really failed I think.

Aside from that, the plot was very simple and yet managed to feel disjointed. I guess that’s okay though since Lewis Carrol’s story wasn’t exactly the most easy-to-follow thing ever created. I think it would have been a better idea to stick to the original story instead of going the Hook route and making it a revisit. Sure, you get rid of the possibly dangerous element of kid actress whose clothes don’t always stay the same size as her body, but it’s just not as whimsical or interesting.

As I stated in the first paragraph, my impression from the first released images was a very dark film. It’s not really. Some of it’s kind of edgy, but it’s a very safe, PG movie. Of course since it is PG you have to learn something (shudder), which lead to a cringe-inducing final scene of Alice deciding things for herself and being oh so very empowered in the faces of a bunch of nitwits. Gah.

I didn’t really like any of the characters. Johnny Depp didn’t fit his role, Helena Bonham Carter had too much heart for the Red Queen, and Steven Fry’s Cheshire Cat wasn’t nearly as creepy as the animated version. Burton really should have left his comfort zone and hired some different actors for this movie. The girl who played Alice who’s name I forget was very bland and uninteresting, but at least she was pretty. I think the only character that I thought was done pretty well was the March Hare; he had the right randomly violent antics for it.

Altogether, a disappointment.