Directed by Tim Burton
Starring Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway
Score: 3 out of 10
Do you remember when Tim Burton made good movies? I do. I even remember when he made them with Johnny Depp.
Tim Burton’s take on Alice in Wonderland is a joyless affair; a wanna-be epic movie that doesn’t try nearly hard enough and ends up being quite small and insignificant.
In this “re-visioning”, Alice is played by relative newcomer Mia Wasikowska and, despite her sallow pallor that made me a bit worried she might faint, she is one of the few bright spots of this dull adaptation. Burton has revamped the basic Alice story so she is now a young woman of 20 plagued her whole life by a series of maddening dreams involving a blue caterpillar and a smiling, devious cat.
We meet grown-up Alice on the day she is proposed to by a toothy, ginger-haired lord, who has little patience for whimsy and Alice’s dreamy ways. Instead of giving the ‘yes’ her family and friends expect, Alice ditches the Duke, I mean Lord, and follows a white rabbit she sees in the garden down a literal rabbit hole to Wonderland.
Only in this version, it’s “Underland”, a twisted, faded mess of a place. Everyone seems to know Alice while the girl herself insists throughout the entirely too-long film that this is only a dream. Had she actually been delusional, the movie might have turned out a sight more interesting.
It’s these little tweaks to the basic story (i.e. Wonderland v. Underland) that seem to pass as a re-visioning for Burton, but instead the effect adds to the film’s overall misdirection. Throughout the story is rudderless; there are hints of something different that never really materializes beyond sight gags and some truly perplexing dialogue. The original magic of the story is lost in the translation.
And then there are the performances.
With the exception of Wasikowska and Crispin Glover as a creepy one-eyed black knight (yes, he’s typecast, but I am so happy to see Crispin getting into mainstream film again), everyone else is, at best, middle-of-the-road save Johnny Depp and Anne Hathaway, who are truly awful.
Depp plays the Mad Hatter with glassy eyes and a level of faux insanity that isn’t interesting; it’s embarrassing and uncomfortable to watch. Depp’s Hatter could literally be dropped into a film about crack addicts and would make as equal, or perhaps, more sense. There’s little doubt that Depp is a talented, enthusiastic actor who tries to bring something unique to every role. Sometimes, though, someone needs to tell him no.
As the White Queen, Hathaway emotes and poses. Granted there isn’t a lot of depth to the character, but Hathaway is little more than a living doll. Perhaps that’s what Burton wanted, but compared to Helena Bonham Carter’s fiery and emotional sister, the Red Queen, the White Queen comes off like a plastic person on lithium.
It’s as if Burton and crew wanted to make a much darker and more interesting movie (think: American McGee’s Alice), but were forced to work within the confines of a Disney PG rating and all the mediocrity that comes with it. "Alice in Wonderland", like "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", is, ultimately, something of a horror story and in both cases, Burton’s take is right at the edge of stepping into the darkness, but ends up trading what could be a fascinating, more layered take into something vapid and thoughtless.
Alice in Wonderland isn’t unwatchable, but it's close and, certainly, a big disappointment.
Tim Burton’s take on Alice in Wonderland is a joyless affair; a wanna-be epic movie that doesn’t try nearly hard enough and ends up being quite small and insignificant.
In this “re-visioning”, Alice is played by relative newcomer Mia Wasikowska and, despite her sallow pallor that made me a bit worried she might faint, she is one of the few bright spots of this dull adaptation. Burton has revamped the basic Alice story so she is now a young woman of 20 plagued her whole life by a series of maddening dreams involving a blue caterpillar and a smiling, devious cat.
We meet grown-up Alice on the day she is proposed to by a toothy, ginger-haired lord, who has little patience for whimsy and Alice’s dreamy ways. Instead of giving the ‘yes’ her family and friends expect, Alice ditches the Duke, I mean Lord, and follows a white rabbit she sees in the garden down a literal rabbit hole to Wonderland.
Only in this version, it’s “Underland”, a twisted, faded mess of a place. Everyone seems to know Alice while the girl herself insists throughout the entirely too-long film that this is only a dream. Had she actually been delusional, the movie might have turned out a sight more interesting.
It’s these little tweaks to the basic story (i.e. Wonderland v. Underland) that seem to pass as a re-visioning for Burton, but instead the effect adds to the film’s overall misdirection. Throughout the story is rudderless; there are hints of something different that never really materializes beyond sight gags and some truly perplexing dialogue. The original magic of the story is lost in the translation.
And then there are the performances.
With the exception of Wasikowska and Crispin Glover as a creepy one-eyed black knight (yes, he’s typecast, but I am so happy to see Crispin getting into mainstream film again), everyone else is, at best, middle-of-the-road save Johnny Depp and Anne Hathaway, who are truly awful.
Depp plays the Mad Hatter with glassy eyes and a level of faux insanity that isn’t interesting; it’s embarrassing and uncomfortable to watch. Depp’s Hatter could literally be dropped into a film about crack addicts and would make as equal, or perhaps, more sense. There’s little doubt that Depp is a talented, enthusiastic actor who tries to bring something unique to every role. Sometimes, though, someone needs to tell him no.
As the White Queen, Hathaway emotes and poses. Granted there isn’t a lot of depth to the character, but Hathaway is little more than a living doll. Perhaps that’s what Burton wanted, but compared to Helena Bonham Carter’s fiery and emotional sister, the Red Queen, the White Queen comes off like a plastic person on lithium.
It’s as if Burton and crew wanted to make a much darker and more interesting movie (think: American McGee’s Alice), but were forced to work within the confines of a Disney PG rating and all the mediocrity that comes with it. "Alice in Wonderland", like "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", is, ultimately, something of a horror story and in both cases, Burton’s take is right at the edge of stepping into the darkness, but ends up trading what could be a fascinating, more layered take into something vapid and thoughtless.
Alice in Wonderland isn’t unwatchable, but it's close and, certainly, a big disappointment.
