.
.
Tim Burton is an iconic director, making films that amaze and excite. The list of groundbreaking works include Beetlejuice, Mars Attacks, Batman and Batman Returns. His work with Johnny Depp include Edward Scissorhands, Sweeney Todd, Sleepy Hollow, Ed Wood and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Johnny Depp in an iconic actor, making films that excite and amaze. The list of groundbreaking works include Pirates of the Caribbean, Finding Neverland and Public Enemies. His work with Tim Burton includes… see above.
These two have teamed up again for a gigantic 3-D experience – Alice in Wonderland.
The story of this version of Alice in Wonderland has about as much to do with the Lewis Carroll novels as the later Ian Fleming James Bond books have to do with the movies – meaning very little. Our tale begins with little Alice being calmed after having nightmares. Her father assures her that the visions of a mad hatter and a March Hare are all just a part of her vivid imagination in dreamland. We jump forward thirteen years and 19 year-old Alice (Mia Wasikowska) is a young woman in Victorian England, a society where who you marry is more important than who you are. Just as she is proposed to by a ‘good catch’ of the upper-crust, she runs off to chase a white rabbit she has seen before but only in her night visions.
Chasing after this hare, she goes into a hollowed out tree and down the rabbit hole. There, she believes that she is back in her dreams. She encounters the worried March Hare who seems late, a disappearing Cheshire Cat with a wicked smile, a blue caterpillar with a hooka, a dormouse and or course, Tweedledee and Tweedledum. There is also a Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) who has some lustful interest in this now young woman.
She is shown a scroll that depicts events that have happened and will happen. The last panels are of a battle between a fair-haired vanquisher and the dreaded Jabberwocky. The beast is controlled by The Red Queen (of Hearts) played partially by Helena Bonham Carter and partly by CGI graphics. This raven haired heady creature loves to bellow “Off with their heads!” at a massive volume.
She has been in a feud with her sister the White Queen (Anne Hathaway), a gentle royal who has made a pledge never to hurt even one living soul. The film is about the epic battle that Alice becomes a part of, something that has been very predetermined. Without giving anything away, the very ending has a very ‘girl power’ feel both for modern audiences and the Victorian age that the film is based in.
This movie is just a feast for the eyes, with 3-D effects that don’t jump out at you but become a part of the experience. It is just amazing how realistic the process of creating different worlds has become. We feel that every little element painted in the computer world of Alice in Wonderland.
Once again, Johnny Depp delivers an iconic performance with the Mad Hatter. The make-up of this crazed man add a shocking degree to the performance, much more truly crazed mad than irritated mad. He gives his character a randy subtly that adds an unimagined depth to the role.
Helena Bonham Carter proves that she is one of our most underrated actresses. She turns a cartoonish character into a breathing spitfire of Id. When she screams, we believe that she can bring hell fire with a single breath. Though Anne Hathaway is a bit lost in the role of the White Queen. Being the good girl always is a less challenging experience than being the scene-chewing bad character, but she needed to find a different beat with the role.
There are some problems with this version of Alice in Wonderland. Though pushed as a kid’s film, this is a very adult adventure, both in tone and story. Where the animated Disney version of decades past focused on the lighter and more humorous aspects of Carroll, this version revels in the darker corners of the two Alice tomes. This is a version that will scare the littlest tykes. The other is that the pace becomes methodically slow at times. The film needed to find some excitement in the scenes, they walk along when they should have run. By the time we get to our big finish, much of the good intentions set in the beginning are long gone.
Alice in Wonderland is by no means a great film but it is an interesting bit of entertainment. More times it felt as if it were an outtake from The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe than a film of unique means.
Overall, I enjoyed this world of Alice. In one sense, that may be the important thing, if one were to stick to the flavor of the original novel. The story within the Wonderland, I felt, wasn’t as poignant as “real life” moments, which were filmed with much love and detail. Given the fact that original story consisted of series of random events and character interactions, it was nice to see the characters work together a bit. The overall result isn’t something beyond what one would expect from this style of work, but it’s fun, and where it succeeds, it succeeds well, thanks to the consistency of Tim Burton’s imaginative visuals. *** out of **** stars.