Alice sweet Alice, how many times will you find yourself in a movie?\u00a0 Once again the Lewis Carroll classic gets a cinematic adaptation, this time no expense is spared.\u00a0 But is the Tim Burton bent the right direction?<\/p>\n
The answer is YES!\u00a0 I thoroughly enjoyed the Burton\u2019s vision that viewers will learn is tweaked but not too much so, is dark but not too dark, and is funny with a great, big, bulbous royal head.<\/p>\n
ALICE IN WONDERLAND starts in the real world.\u00a0 We meet Alice as a 5 or 6 year old.\u00a0 Her father is in the middle of an important and visionary business pitch only to be interrupted by Alice, who has just awaken from a troubling dream.\u00a0 Lovingly, her father leaves the meeting to comfort his little girl.\u00a0 While putting her to bed, he playfully confirms that she has gone a bit mad, but he explains, all the best people are.\u00a0 This scene is impressively mounted in a lush but concrete world later to be in stark contrast to the rich tapestry of fantasy that is to follow.<\/p>\n
Some 13 years pass and Alice (now played by Mia Wasikowska) is on the road–late to a very important date.\u00a0 Her mother is frustrated by Alice\u2019s refusal to wear the traditional but uncomfortable corset. \u00a0But her mother knows that Alice marches to her own drummer, like her father before her, who has since passed away.\u00a0 Once at the event, Alice learns that an impetuous and obnoxious Lord intends to ask for her hand in marriage.\u00a0 Love has nothing at all to do with it.\u00a0 But when Alice takes particular notice of a rabbit in a waistcoat rummaging through the garden, she must investigate even if that means that the Lord has to hold his horses.\u00a0 Down that famous rabbit hole awaits!<\/p>\n
One of Tim Burton\u2019s most accessible films to date, ALICE IN WONDERLAND is a family friendly adaptation whose central metaphor concerns free will.\u00a0 The casting is perfect headed literally by Helena Bonham Carter as the infamous Red Queen.\u00a0 After a bit of adjustment, Carter\u2019s acting talents shine through, even under all that make up and explosive animated head.<\/p>\n
I suspect that the form of animation employed to fashion the Red Queen\u2019s head uses some kind of motion capture most typified by best picture shoe-in AVATAR.\u00a0 But unlike that Cameron juggernaut, Burton\u2019s film is fantastic in narrative granting the animation team great license to take liberties with the environment and characters.\u00a0 And the story itself has fun with this motif, Alice questions whether it is all a dream, even beckoning the mouse to stick her with a needle.\u00a0 But when that needle makes Alice yelp, the viewer like Alice accepts that the fantastic is real.\u00a0 I let myself give into it wholly, without question, perhaps because after seeing AVATAR twice, I accept this form of story-telling without too much cynicism.\u00a0 And given AVATAR\u2019s great success, I expect that audiences have been similarly tenderized.<\/p>\n
Johnny Depp plays the Mad Hatter with the kind of insanity we\u2019ve come to love.\u00a0 Burton\u2019s relationship with Depp points up how important it is for filmmakers to align themselves with great acting talent.\u00a0 Like Herzog\/Kinski it is a matching that produces interesting and often significant results.\u00a0 What I liked about Depp\u2019s performance was the tragic side he brought to the character.\u00a0 Depp as the Hatter, is not animated from what I can tell.\u00a0 His characterization does benefit from great make-up and wardrobe techniques (from Colleen Atwood, of course) including a marvelous top hat that gets a lot of mileage.\u00a0 There\u2019s depth to the role, especially as the Hatter becomes more and more stressed.\u00a0 And his crazed manner ironically seems almost sane amid Burton\u2019s vision of Wonderland.<\/p>\n
Burton\u2019s mastery of his style can become a bit indulgent, but ALICE seems as though he\u2019s reigning it all in.\u00a0 And this is a good thing.\u00a0 The darker elements shouldn\u2019t trouble young viewers and the message, especially for girls, is sound and inspirational.\u00a0 I felt as though the source material, which I\u2019m only cursorily familiar with the specific details of, may have been a little limiting, which makes Burton\u2019s adaptation of it, from a script by Linda Woolverton, go for the big finale involving the requisite amount of action.<\/p>\n
The film\u2019s resolve was a bit too simple, if also a little of a let-down.\u00a0 A dance sequence to what could only be described as \u201cdisco\u201d music seemed to be out of place and almost a tone killer.\u00a0 But the film\u2019s final denouement left me wanting to see more, especially from Mia Wasikowska whose Alice is the rock upon which Burton\u2019s able to work his fantastic magic.\u00a0 Going back through the looking glass might be in the cards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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