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Go Ask Alice or Alice in Chains or An Alice in Wonderland Review
From the moment the breakfast machine started up in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, I was a fan of Tim Burton. Beetlejuice is one of my all time favorite movies. Without his Batman, we wouldn’t have
the comic book movie renaissance we have now. When Burton teamed up with Johnny Depp, they gave us Edward Scissorhands and one of their best movies, Ed Wood.
While the quality of Tim Burton’s movies have been questionable of late, I’ve always felt he’s one good movie away from getting his freaky mojo back. So, I went into his version of Alice in Wonderland I wanted very much to like it. Unfortunately like Tim Burton’s last handful of movies, this one felt empty. There were some cool things to look at on the screen. But despite the presence of a few signature Tim Burton icons (black and white checkers, staircases that ascend to nowhere, trees with curled branches), the movie didn’t have his distinctive flavor.
It’s an ironic thing to say about a 3D movie, but Alice in Wonderland was flat. The movie never grabbed me or made me care much about the characters. The world although richly drawn, is drab. It wasn't a place I liked visiting. The movie works very hard to entertain, but for most of the time I felt like it was happening at me instead of involving me.
If the ads and trailers have taught me anything it’s that Johnny Depp is supposed to be the big draw here. But his performance here is a trick of his we’ve been seeing over the course of his career—he immerses himself in a quirky character. It's a trick that doesn't work here. Like his take on Willy Wonka, Depp seems to be working really hard to try to make us love a weird character. I didn’t. His Mad Hatter had a creepy glassy wide, green-eyed stare as if he were some anime character and I found him and his ever-changing accent to be distracting
Mia Wasikowska, who plays Alice, is incredibly likable and comes across as if somebody spliced together Gwyneth Paltrow with Claire Danes. And I was actually surprised how much I liked Helena Bonham Carter in the flick, despite the fact that I’ve grown weary of seeing of in every Burton movie for a decade.
It was my first time strapping on the ol’ 3D glasses since Avatar. (And from the looks of things it certainly won’t be the last.) I like 3D and think it adds a fun element to a movie like this, but at this point we’ve seen everything that 3D can do, so don’t expect it to feel surprising. There are, however, a lot more things being hurled at your face in Wonderland than on Pandora.
You parents should know that the movie is intense in parts. There are a few flashes of brutal violence (but no blood) and it has an overall creepy tone. My kid would be totally freaked out by it, but he’s 4. The trailer gives a pretty good indication of the tone of the movie.
Unfortunately I was disappointed with Alice in Wonderland. I’d really like to see Tim Burton snap out of this pattern of recycling ideas and find a personal story to tell. He’s got another Edward
Scissorhands in there. We’re just going to have to wait a little while longer before we get to see it.
the comic book movie renaissance we have now. When Burton teamed up with Johnny Depp, they gave us Edward Scissorhands and one of their best movies, Ed Wood.
While the quality of Tim Burton’s movies have been questionable of late, I’ve always felt he’s one good movie away from getting his freaky mojo back. So, I went into his version of Alice in Wonderland I wanted very much to like it. Unfortunately like Tim Burton’s last handful of movies, this one felt empty. There were some cool things to look at on the screen. But despite the presence of a few signature Tim Burton icons (black and white checkers, staircases that ascend to nowhere, trees with curled branches), the movie didn’t have his distinctive flavor.
It’s an ironic thing to say about a 3D movie, but Alice in Wonderland was flat. The movie never grabbed me or made me care much about the characters. The world although richly drawn, is drab. It wasn't a place I liked visiting. The movie works very hard to entertain, but for most of the time I felt like it was happening at me instead of involving me.
If the ads and trailers have taught me anything it’s that Johnny Depp is supposed to be the big draw here. But his performance here is a trick of his we’ve been seeing over the course of his career—he immerses himself in a quirky character. It's a trick that doesn't work here. Like his take on Willy Wonka, Depp seems to be working really hard to try to make us love a weird character. I didn’t. His Mad Hatter had a creepy glassy wide, green-eyed stare as if he were some anime character and I found him and his ever-changing accent to be distracting
Mia Wasikowska, who plays Alice, is incredibly likable and comes across as if somebody spliced together Gwyneth Paltrow with Claire Danes. And I was actually surprised how much I liked Helena Bonham Carter in the flick, despite the fact that I’ve grown weary of seeing of in every Burton movie for a decade.
It was my first time strapping on the ol’ 3D glasses since Avatar. (And from the looks of things it certainly won’t be the last.) I like 3D and think it adds a fun element to a movie like this, but at this point we’ve seen everything that 3D can do, so don’t expect it to feel surprising. There are, however, a lot more things being hurled at your face in Wonderland than on Pandora.
You parents should know that the movie is intense in parts. There are a few flashes of brutal violence (but no blood) and it has an overall creepy tone. My kid would be totally freaked out by it, but he’s 4. The trailer gives a pretty good indication of the tone of the movie.
Unfortunately I was disappointed with Alice in Wonderland. I’d really like to see Tim Burton snap out of this pattern of recycling ideas and find a personal story to tell. He’s got another Edward
Scissorhands in there. We’re just going to have to wait a little while longer before we get to see it.
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Comment by hermit crab on March 6, 2010 at 7:23am -
I'm really excited for Alice! I love both earlier and recent Tim Burton - loved The Corpse Bride and the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - and I think that Alice fits right in with Burton's appreciation of plucky goth female heroines.
JTC, your comment made me think about LC and Alice versus Nabokov and Lolita. Which literature do you find more problematic, the real-life pedophile with the empowered heroine or the non-pedophile with the victimized child heroine?
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Comment by Reeling on March 6, 2010 at 9:00am
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Capp...I wouldn't say the movie itself is formulaic. Rather it's the collaborations between Tim Burton, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter that have become stale. I just wished that some of the manic energy from a movie like Beetlejuice could have found its way here. Even Danny Elfman's score is flat.
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Comment by Floor Pie on March 6, 2010 at 9:35am -
I'm feeling just the littlest bit vindicated by the reviews of Alice in Wonderland I've seen (um...which would be yours and EW's). Somehow I suspected this movie wasn't going to be all that, and I'd been feeling vaguely irritated by its presence. You know..."Johnny Depp is soooo freaky! And he's playing a freaky character! Again!" It's just too obvious to be awesome, I guess.
I loved the Disney version as a child. I'm not opposed to a cinematic reimagining of the books, but I guess I feel like there's so much more potential there to explore the depths of the text instead of just making it visually zany. ("Why does it have to be zany?") I felt the same way when I saw the trailer for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Loved the book, loved the 1970's trippy classic film version of it, didn't see the need for an even-trippier film version of it when the text is richer than that.
And there is a hint of formula to it. What's next? A trippy 3-D Wizard of Oz with Johnny Depp as the trippy wizard? A trippy 3-D Old Yeller with Johnny Depp as trippy Old Yeller? Now excuse me while I go shake my rolling pin at those kids on my lawn...
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Comment by ks on March 6, 2010 at 9:54am -
I'll be disappointed when I see it if it isn't great. I expect I'll at least like it, though, because so far, I've really liked all the Burton, Depp, Carter collaborations (and lately, he's had Alan Rickman as well, and we all know how I feel about that).
Because I really love most stuff by Tim Burton, and I've had a serious crush on Johnny Depp since I was 12. I've tried, but it won't go away--I lurve him.
And I have to say, Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood are two of my favoritist movies ever. Love those.
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The EW review is great. I held off reading it until I wrote this one and afterwards I felt like EW just nailed it completely.
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Yeah....big ups to Floor Pie for that one. (Though I would totally pay to see the that movie.)
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Comment by mcglory13 on March 8, 2010 at 5:28am -
So I saw the movie. With all the negative reviews there was nowhere to go but up. :) I didn't care for Anne Hathaway's performance, or that the film decided to focus on the Mad Hatter. The biggest thing I noticed however, was the shift in tone from the original. I've read reviews that say it's more like The Wizard of Oz now, and I think that that is true in some ways. In the original story Alice was pretty much a pill. She wasn't having any of the nonsense around her. Dorothy, on the other hand, was the "can do" American girl, who calmly accepted the crazy people around her, and with her common sense solved people's problems. I think they turned Alice into more of a Dorothy. Which makes sense, given the film was done by Disney, but loses the things that kids love about Alice (ie grown ups can be insane, kids can be right, carnivale thing).
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Comment by Daddy Geek Boy on March 8, 2010 at 7:41am
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McGlory...Yeah, I can see that. Though Wizard of Oz was largely vibrant and the world was fun, even when it was dark. I found this version of "Underland" to be dreary. You're totally right that it stripped the element away from the story that I always responded to--the insanity of the world. I didn't get a feeling that this world was worth saving.
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Comment by mcglory13 on March 8, 2010 at 7:55am
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DGB, that's true of the Wizard of Oz the movie, but not so much the books. But yes, "Underland" was dreary, and since they decided to conclude the movie the way they did, the "real world" was far more unbelievable and utopic than the alternate world.
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Comment by Meghan on March 19, 2010 at 6:26pm -
I am an Alice in Wonderland Junkie and I have seen most of the versions of the story that are out there. I agree that some things could have been better with this, but on the whole I was pretty happy with this movie, although, it made me want to see the SciFi version Alice again. I also saw Malice in Wonderland last weekend and was pleasantly surprised as I was sure it would be a torture porn flick.
I have not seen the Martin Short version of Alice in Wonderland, but I did pick up the 1980's version of live action that was on network tv starring Natalie Gregory.
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