Alice in Wonderland introduces Mia Wasikowska as the title character and features Burton regulars Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter as the Mad Hatter and the Red Queen, respectively. It also stars the massive talent montage of Anne Hathaway, Crispin Glover, Alan Rickman, Matt Lucas, Michael Sheen, Stephen Fry, and Christopher Lee. It's like Valentine's Day, but with more weird people.
Alice in Wonderland is a somewhat deceptive title. It would be more appropriately title "Jabberwock," in the same way the revisit to Never Never Land was called "Hook," because that is what this movie is - a revisit to Wonderland or "Underland." Alice is all grown up now, though plagued with disturbing dreams of a place where the animals speak and she is never the proper size. In the real world she is faced with something even more disturbing - getting married. To a bloke who looks like he could have been cast as a talking animal back in the days of furry costumes and makeup. He probably would have played a pig. Not sure what to do when her hand is asked for, Alice does the logical thing and runs away from the situation, predictably falling down a psychedelic hole in the process.
Despite being a sequel of sorts with a plot all its own, the following events feel very familiar. Alice falls down the hole, finds a door, deals with a Zelda worthy puzzle of growing and shrinking to manage to get ahold of the key while being the right size for the door. She meets the White Rabbit, the Caterpillar asks her who she is, and she goes to a mad tea party per the directions of a floaty cat. Each of these elements, however, has been plucked out, given the Tim Burton spiralized treatment, and then plopped back into place, interspersed with a new plot based on an odd interpretation of the poem Jabberwocky. I'm pretty sure "Frabjous" means fantastically joyous, not the title of some divine day, but ok, we'll roll with it.
Underland is in trouble what with the Red Queen chopping everyone's head and letting loose such creatures as the Bandersnatch and Jub Jub Bird to destroy and strike fear. And of course Alice has been brought back to save them all - though other than being a destiny fulfiller, her specialness is never really given a reason.
Perhaps the most hyped is Johnny Depp's portrayal of the Mad Hatter. It is more palatable, though more confusing, than his last Burtonized children's character Willy Wonka. He seems to have three personalities - a meek mad man, a rough and tough slightly saner person, and Jack Sparrow with an Irish brogue. Not to mention the flashback version of himself where he is a red headed Weird Al.
The plot, most of the time, feels either half baked or over done, relying too much on the original story and never really getting into the meat of the new one. There are some innovative aspects to it that do feel both Burton and Carrol while being fresh at the same time, but those are fewer than I would have liked. The truly bizarreness that such a potentially disturbing story and a twisted director should have created never materialize. I blame Disney for that - taking something which should have given us the best kind of nightmares and making it into a kid's movie. Some of that disturbingness does creep through from time to time in the form of such things as skewered eyes and disembodied stepping stones but then you have replaced eyes and Bandersnatches that really just want to be loved.
All of the actors do an admirable job, but I would have liked to see much more of, well, all of them. The movie is just too dang short to develop any character beyond a few moments. Christopher Lee felt wasted with the two lines he had as the Jabberwock. I did fall in love with Matt Lucas as the two Tweedles and would have loved for them to play a more important part in the story.
The visuals were wonderful, if nothing new from Burton. It was clear he put a lot of thought into the look of everything - perhaps to a fault as the visuals were grander than the story in most instances. I did not see this in 3D partly because I was underwhelmed by the 3D trailer and partly because after Avatar it will be a while before any 3D film doesn't underwhelm.
The music too, though very nice, was Danny Elfman does Tim Burton, and in some cases sounded exactly like the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory score.
I enjoyed this film a good amount for a good amount of reasons, but just because I liked it doesn't mean I can't be critical of its many shortcomings if only because I know the end result could have been simply frabjous instead of just semi-brillig.
*** (3/5 stars)
No comments:
Post a Comment