...Curiouser and Curiouser...

Released: March 5, 2010

Runtime: 108 minutes

Rated: PG [for fantasy action/violence involving scary images and situations, and for a smoking caterpillar]

Genres: Fantasy/Adventure/Family

Cast: Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway

Director: Tim Burton

Here is a sequel to Lewis Carrol's trippy, epic novels, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.  Tim Burton doesn't have a great record when it comes to "re-imagining" an already successful franchise. (See Planet of the Apes and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), and this movie is no exception.  To be honest, you can’t put the blame solely on Tim Burton. After all, the screenplay was adapted and altered by screenwriter Linda Woolverton. What Tim Burton actually did succeed in was implementing his trademark: a dark, fantastical, yet somehow, charming atmosphere.

We join a 19-year-old Alice (Wasikowska) on her way to, what turns out to be her engagement party. When her suitor (a rich, uninteresting snob with a nose Toucan Sam would envy) proposes. Absent-minded Alice takes the perfect opportunity to chase a white rabbit that has been plaguing her peripheral vision for some time. She chases this rabbit for a while and falls into a deep hole in the ground.  At the bottom, she encounters a familiar puzzle (Eat Me, Drink Me) and finally stubbles upon Wonderland (which is actually "Underland" but YOUNG Alice mispronounced it when she first visited 13 years ealrier. Silly 6-year-olds and their ludicrous imagination…

It appears the Red Queen has been busy, using the Jabberwocky to terrorize the citizens of *cringe* Underland and ordering decapitations at a rate that would make the headless horseman inadequate.  However, there is a prophecy that states, in pictures of course, that Alice is the chosen one who will slay the Jabberwocky and help end the Red Queen's reign of terror.

You would think that Burton would at least realize what made Wonderland so appealing and honor the original story and characters. Instead, the audience gets a flat rock thrown at a pond; skipping cautiously through familiar scenes; only skimming the surface…

One of those scenes would definitely be Alice’s encounter with the entirely CGI Cheshire Cat (voiced by Stephen Fry). What the audience got was no brilling, or slithy toves, and gyre and gimble were not in the wabe. Instead, the audience gets a bland, quaint conversation between the two characters.

The special effects were rather impressive. The mad tea-party (which seems to take place in front of the Sleepy Hollow windmill...keep an eye out for that) looked realistic, yet fantastical at the same time.  Tweetle Dee and Dum were odd-looking but somehow almost tangible.  The Red Queen and her exaggerated, bulbous head resting on a petit body was impressive eye candy for eccentric moviegoers.

However, there were a few CGI effects that didn't quite fit. The Knave of Hearts (Crispin Glover) looked like a normal long-haired, eye-patch-wearing man, except his movements were just a little awkward and unsteady.  It wasn't until a wider shot that you could really tell that he is freakishly tall and slightly flat, like a card.  It sort of made sense, but wouldn't it have made more sense to hire a taller, skinnier actor and not spend so much time and money trying to make Glover look just SLIGHTLY awkward?

The pointless, yet funny and likeable, ravings of the Mad Hatter (Depp), the March Hare (voiced by Paul Whitehouse) and the Doormouse (Barbara Windsor) were watered down to move the paper-thin plot along. Instead, there was a frantic, jittery, aggressive, and violent hare that constantly throws plates and teacups at any given person, rambling in scottish jargon.

There is also what seems to be the love child of Elijah Wood and the sad clown from a velvet painting. It turns out to be the Mad Hatter, whose sullen mood carries throughout the entirety of the movie. It's hard to understand why they would do such a thing, since the Mad Hatter is supposed to be depicted as being, well, MAD! WILD! WACKY! Aside from the tea party scene, Depp played the Hatter more like a slightly soberer Jack Sparrow, throwing in a few falsetto cackles every once in a while.

Helena Bonham Carter's Red Queen fell short. Her acting was two-dimensional and flat, much like the Queen's army of playing cards.  The only thing that Carter embodied perfectly was The Queen of Hearts stupidity, lack of common sense, and gullibility. The phrase, “off with their heads,” was uttered more than once, but it was spoken so quickly each time, that it could easily be mistaken for “I’m better off dead," which, in a way, makes a little more sense in this movie.

The music provided entirely by long-time Burton collaborator, Danny Elfman, was unfittingly bland.  At no point was it remotely moving or overflowing with emotion, as Elfman's scores usually tend to be. Maybe it was too difficult for Mr Elfman to find anything inspiring in is this two-dimentional 3D movie, or maybe he was simply not trying.

This film is not for Alice in Wonderland fans. It's an over-budgeted fan-fiction movie made by and for a non-fan.  It's a story about something completely unrelated to Wonderland sprinkled with weak versions of Lewis Carrol's characters and situations and labeled a "sequel" to justify all of it.  This movie is not for Tim Burton fans because it's a sad sign of the Burton apocalypse; when all his talent and imagination are completely depleted and wasted making these "re-imaginations" of classics that don't need "re-imagining." 

Official Trailer

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Show/Hide comments

Show/Hide comment form

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (Registered users only)

I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage.

Add Comment Preview