Tim Burton’s very hyped, heavily advertised take on the Lewis Carroll classic is surprisingly light on its Tim Burton. Sure, the surface elements are all there: the characters and their surroundings look weird. But for the most part, this is a by-the-numbers approach to Alice in Wonderland.
It’s so by-the-numbers that it comes across a bit pointless. Even the story doesn’t seem new, despite this being Alice’s second trip to Wonderland. Tim Burton must be working with the major theme of if you forget the past, you are doomed to repeat it; Alice at 19 finds herself going through the same motions as Alice at 6. She’s dismissed her earlier adventure in Wonderland, or Underland as she’s told it’s really called, as a bad dream. The Wonderland/Underland misnomer comes across as a one-off bit shoe-horned late in the film. Is there a point to Alice having the name wrong? Is Underland really a better name than Wonderland?
I don’t want to come across as too harsh against this movie, as I did enjoy it. Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter is the best performance in this role by someone not named Tom Petty. Although it is weird that the Tim Burtonized Mad Hatter makes Johnny Depp look surprisingly like Elijah Wood. Maybe Wood wasn’t available due to Hobbit commitments, or maybe Burton just thought Depp did a better Scottish accent, but still wanted that Elijah Wood look.
Speaking of people looking like other people, am I the only one who thought that Anne Hathaway’s White Queen looked a lot like Lady Gaga?
I went to a 3D, but non-Imax showing of Alice in Wonderland. The 3D in the movie was cool. It wasn’t mind-blowing in the way that Avatar’s was, but they make good use of it, and I think the movie was better for it and is worth the extra fee. Theaters are charging $3 extra for the 3D version of the movie to cover the cost of glasses. I think they should waive that fee if you bring your own glasses from the last 3D movie you watched, but that’s not the case in any 3D theater I’ve been to so far. I guess it would be a logistical nightmare, or encourage dishonest practices by customers, or it’s just another revenue stream for them.
Christopher Lee, who has never played General Zod, voices the Jabberwocky. Christopher Lee will always be The Man Who Never Played General Zod to me, after so many years spent incorrectly believing him to be General Zod. He uses the same deep throated voice here that worked so well in playing villains like Saruman and not playing villains like General Zod.
If you decided to skip out on seeing Alice in Wonderland, you wouldn’t be missing much. Because really, at the end of the day, if Tom Petty isn’t the Mad Hatter or Geoffrey Holder, the old 7-Up guy, isn’t playing the Cheshire Cat, what’s the point?
Both of these Alice in Wonderlands freaked me out as a child much more than Tim Burton ever could:
Geoffry Holder as the Chesire Cat:
Tom Petty’s Don’t Come Around Here No More video:
I only realized after re-reading the AV Club’s review, after watching the movie, that they *also* compared it to Narnia, but that was my major impression (and peeve) about this one: There was no need for this to be Alice. It could have been Dorothy and Scarecrow, as much as it felt like Wonderland, and it really just felt like genero-fantasy. In talking to people tonight who haven’t seen it but are very excited to, I realized more fully that I shouldn’t be upset that Burton (and his awful screenwriter) messed with the plot — you kind of have to, or else what’s the point?
I guess I’m really just upset that the *feel* of Alice is gone. Lewis Carroll wrote the cleverest damn children’s book of all time, and Disney (in 1951) captured that perfectly [and Kathryn Beaumont nailed the what-the-hell-is-going-on-ness of our heroine]. Tim Burton gives us some pretty 3D scenery, but with a blah feminist-for-no-reason protagonist, a wacky-for-wacky’s-sake Johnny Depp (channeling Jack Sparrow when he should be going for Willy Wonka, or at least Ed Wood), and a script that leaves out any of the Wonder from Wonderland.
Carroll’s Alice — *my* Alice — is supposed to sound like this:
—–
Mad Hatter: Would you like a little more tea?
Alice: Well, I haven’t had any yet, so I can’t very well take more.
March Hare: Ah, you mean you can’t very well take less.
Mad Hatter: Yes. You can always take more than nothing.
—–
I guess one should expect something of a let-down when someone remakes one of your Top 3 favorite movies of all time, but it just feels like Tim Burton didn’t even try to find the Aliceness of Alice — he just took a fantasy script and slapped some familiar characters on it so that he had an excuse to make a movie in 3D. Sigh.
Also, the Clearview’s popcorn is too salty.
I fell asleep during the final action sequence, and clearview’s popcorn is only salty because the girl you forced to run down two flights to get the refill and miss the beginning of the the movie put salt on it.