Alice in Wonderland

I am huge fan of Tim Burton’s work. Actually some of my favorite films are his doing. He has had some missteps before, Mars Attacks and Planet of the Apes, to name the most obvious. Now, with Alice in Wonderland , he had the perfect material to exercise his directorial prowess but sadly, the movie does not succeed.

The opening world of the movie set against a stuffy Victorian wedding proposal was pretty genius to introduce the now grown Alice (Mia Wasikowska). She wants so much more than the world has allowed. She just wants to think for herself. When she first catches a glimpse of the white rabbit, I got giddy. It was a wondrous moment that made me anxious for things to come. Falling down the rabbit hole was pretty cool and then we hit our first snag. The door room. This scene lost something that I can’t quite figure out. When she finally enters Wonderland (actually Underland as the caterpillar later informs us), it’s, again, cool and somewhat underwhelming. We are rushed into meeting certain characters (The flowers, Dodo, Tweedles, Dormouse). And as quickly as they are introduced they are taken away by the Bandersnatch incident. It’s like we get these great moments of joy and heart that are then replaced by soulless storytelling.

Don’t get me wrong I didn’t hate this homage to Lewis Carroll’s books but it just doesn’t always come together. You have a teenage Alice back in Underland who has no memory of ever meeting any of these weird creatures or crazy people. Its fun thinking that she has to be re-introduced to the characters and much along the same path of her original adventure as a young girl. You get to experience some great character moments like with the Cheshire Cat and the Tweedle brothers all over again. That said, making the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) integral to the plot for the sake of the lead actor being director’s pet, just didn’t work (I love Johnny Depp but this character was a mess). This should be Alice’s story and we should be focusing on her quest yet it seems the Hatter is shoe horned in. I would have loved to spend more time with both queens, Red (Helena Bonham Carter) and White (Anne Hathaway), because their back-story seemed genuine and really the main cause of the plight in Underland.

Okay what did I love? The visuals are amazing! The fact that all the sets where created digitally is incredible. The costumes and set design were fantastic. I loved the dark touches Burton and writer Linda Woolverton added like the eye jab and the moat of heads. Danny Elfman’s score was perfection. He gave certain scenes much needed emotion and wonder with the music. Anne Hathaway is a stand out for having a confusingly small role. And Helena overacts to the right level for the Red Queen. I can’t say it enough but I loved the Cheshire Cat (voiced by Stephen Fry). Every scene he was in connected me to the story.

The bad. Hatter did not need this much screen time. I didn’t feel for his character nor did I need him in almost every scene. The dialogue needed work namely that some information was hard to understand. Maybe it was the audio in the theater or the thick British accents? Not sure but it needed work. Overall the film never gets as weird or quirky as it should. It gets to those points then just goes back to being blah. I will see it again just to catch some detail but not what I was expecting. When I got home I longed to watch the Disney animated film, hell even the 1986 TV version with Sammy Davis Jr as the Caterpillar. Burton’s wonderland needs more wonder and madness to make it truly spectacular. My grade: C+