ALICE IN WONDERLAND
AS A FILMMAKER who reinvents well loved stories, Tim Burton's track record is hit or miss. He can be good as in "Edward Scissorhands" (a twisted fairy tale), "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", or he can be bad as in "Planet of the Apes", "Batman Returns" and "Mars Attacks". He now takes Lewis Carroll's well loved "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (first published in 1865). It's been filmed several times before, so to make his version a different one, he turns it inside out. Alice is no longer a little girl here but already 19 years old. She's been to Wonderland when she was 6 but her memory of it is quite hazy. It should therefore be titled "Alice Is in Wonderland Again", since it would be appear that this is more a sequel after her previous visit.
As written by Linda Woolverton ("Beauty and the Beast", "The Lion King"), Alice (Mia Wasikowska of the crocodile movie "Rogue") is being forced into a marriage of convenience in Victorian England and she detests her groom so she runs away. She follows the White Rabbit with a waistcoat (voice by Michael Sheen) down to the rabbit hole once again to revisit Wonderland (also called Underland) which she has seen in recurring dreams from childhood. She meets old friends like the Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry), Blue Caterpillar (Alan Rickman), and the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), who tells her it's predicted that she will be the Champion of the White Queen (Anne Hathaway) in the battle against her evil sister, the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter), to bring peace back to the land.
Alice is supposed to slay the scary Jabberwocky, a huge flying dragon, using the Vorpal Blade but the problem is she's not at all interested to fight anyone. The Red Queen is naturally not amused with Alice. She wants to maintain her dominion over the land and she guards the Vorpal Blade with the monstrous Bandersnatch (a hairy creature). She orders the villainous Knave of Hearts (Crispin Glover) to hunt down Alice and be "off with her head!"
Those familiar with Carroll's stories will recognize Jabberwocks and Bandersnatches as parts of his tales about Alice. This new film adaptation integrates many of his original feature but those who want the film to be faithful to the classic works will not be pleased with the reimagined plot that turns it to a story of woman empowerment.
The problem is that the Australian born actress they got, Mia, is not totally successful in turning her Alice as a particularly charming character. She's blonde, but her portrayal is bland. Depp fares better in his seventh film for Burton, but he is only mildly engaging as the Mad Hatter and nothing like his showier Captain Jack in "The Pirates of the Caribbean" series. It's Helena who practically steals the film as the Napoleonic Red Queen. She's depicted as a midget with a much bigger head on top of her small body. By the way, she's Mrs. Tim Burton in real life.
Visually, the movie tries its best to deliver, but after too many special effects flicks we've seen lately, it doesn't really appear as that special, even in 3-D (the bar for which was raised by "Avatar"), making it not really that a wondrous cinematic experience despite its reported $200 million budget. Its otherworldly ambiance is less weird than Burton's previous adaptations of literary works and will even remind you of "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe". Burton adds a dose of frenetic high octane action involving a chessboard battle in the climax (just like the chase scene in "A Christmas Carol") that makes the film a bit too intense for young kids. A fantasy film that makes you want to visit the land it portrays is "The Wizard of Oz". In the case of "Alice in Wonderland", after seeing it, you don't at all feel the urge to jump into the nearest rabbit hole to go see Wonderland.
AS A FILMMAKER who reinvents well loved stories, Tim Burton's track record is hit or miss. He can be good as in "Edward Scissorhands" (a twisted fairy tale), "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", or he can be bad as in "Planet of the Apes", "Batman Returns" and "Mars Attacks". He now takes Lewis Carroll's well loved "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (first published in 1865). It's been filmed several times before, so to make his version a different one, he turns it inside out. Alice is no longer a little girl here but already 19 years old. She's been to Wonderland when she was 6 but her memory of it is quite hazy. It should therefore be titled "Alice Is in Wonderland Again", since it would be appear that this is more a sequel after her previous visit.
As written by Linda Woolverton ("Beauty and the Beast", "The Lion King"), Alice (Mia Wasikowska of the crocodile movie "Rogue") is being forced into a marriage of convenience in Victorian England and she detests her groom so she runs away. She follows the White Rabbit with a waistcoat (voice by Michael Sheen) down to the rabbit hole once again to revisit Wonderland (also called Underland) which she has seen in recurring dreams from childhood. She meets old friends like the Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry), Blue Caterpillar (Alan Rickman), and the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), who tells her it's predicted that she will be the Champion of the White Queen (Anne Hathaway) in the battle against her evil sister, the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter), to bring peace back to the land.
Alice is supposed to slay the scary Jabberwocky, a huge flying dragon, using the Vorpal Blade but the problem is she's not at all interested to fight anyone. The Red Queen is naturally not amused with Alice. She wants to maintain her dominion over the land and she guards the Vorpal Blade with the monstrous Bandersnatch (a hairy creature). She orders the villainous Knave of Hearts (Crispin Glover) to hunt down Alice and be "off with her head!"
Those familiar with Carroll's stories will recognize Jabberwocks and Bandersnatches as parts of his tales about Alice. This new film adaptation integrates many of his original feature but those who want the film to be faithful to the classic works will not be pleased with the reimagined plot that turns it to a story of woman empowerment.
The problem is that the Australian born actress they got, Mia, is not totally successful in turning her Alice as a particularly charming character. She's blonde, but her portrayal is bland. Depp fares better in his seventh film for Burton, but he is only mildly engaging as the Mad Hatter and nothing like his showier Captain Jack in "The Pirates of the Caribbean" series. It's Helena who practically steals the film as the Napoleonic Red Queen. She's depicted as a midget with a much bigger head on top of her small body. By the way, she's Mrs. Tim Burton in real life.
Visually, the movie tries its best to deliver, but after too many special effects flicks we've seen lately, it doesn't really appear as that special, even in 3-D (the bar for which was raised by "Avatar"), making it not really that a wondrous cinematic experience despite its reported $200 million budget. Its otherworldly ambiance is less weird than Burton's previous adaptations of literary works and will even remind you of "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe". Burton adds a dose of frenetic high octane action involving a chessboard battle in the climax (just like the chase scene in "A Christmas Carol") that makes the film a bit too intense for young kids. A fantasy film that makes you want to visit the land it portrays is "The Wizard of Oz". In the case of "Alice in Wonderland", after seeing it, you don't at all feel the urge to jump into the nearest rabbit hole to go see Wonderland.
