Tuesday, March 9, 2010

The Case for a Summer Wonderland


Before I start: isn’t Sandra Bullock awesome? Accepting both a Razzie and an Oscar with a great sense of humour, if the odd choked tear in there too. She is great, even if I will only ever see a few of her films.

Some other names: Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. Putting those two names together, when linked to a movie project, leaves all my senses tingling in anticipation. True, Charlie and Chocolate Factory was a wee bit underwhelming, but then it was always going to be compared with the Gene Wilder version, which to my way of thinking, is the superior interpretation. Alice in Wonderland though was a greenfields kind of prospect. I was waiting to be impressed.

Visually, I was. The whole film looks absolutely stunning, and in 3D, the thing looks absolutely incredible. The Chesire Cat, voiced by Stephen Fry (oh yes, oh yes) floats all around the cinema and the action scenes use their added depth to great effect.

Not so deep though is the story itself. It’s a bit naff really. Underland is now ruled by the Red Queen and so the citizens are looking for a champion to save them from her dreaded Jabberwocky as the White Queen is too busy ballet dancing with her court – so really it’s like a mix of The Wizard of Oz and the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Throughout these proceedings, Alice seems perpetually bored, though I think the idea is that she is meant to be stiff upper class Britishness. As she doesn’t seem terribly enthused by anything on screen, it is kind of hard to get the audience to feel a shared sense of wonder, though individually there are definitely events and scenes that stand out.

Unfortunately, Mr Depp’s Mad Hatter does not come to save the day. I found his half daft hatter/half William Wallace interpretation of the role irritating more than entertaining, and (spoiler alert) his little dance of joy at the end is embarrassing to all concerned, and I can’t even think of a film in which it would have been more appropriate though I can say that without doubt that it was completely out of place here.

On a brighter note, Helena Bonham Carter’s Red Queen is lots of fun and Crispin Glover continues his string of creepy roles – and does the man ever seem to age?

At any rate, I have kind of run out of puff with this review. I will recommend Alice in Wonderland as an amazing 3D experience, but really can’t recommend it for anything else. Pity.

Verdict: The Burton/Depp magic is wearing off on me. Off kilter performances are one thing, but a strong storyline (even if not necessarily a good one) and engaging characters are definitely needed to give any fantastic performance a medium in which to grow and flourish, neither of which Alice in Wonderland really possesses, for me anyway. 4 decapitations out of 10.

2 comments:

missrabbitty said...

alice is played by an australian with a polish name...therefore she is by definition bored...love the tim-johnny(how hot is he)-helena combo.
thank you for allowing me to see movies vicariously.

Kiwi in Zurich said...

Judge, where has your sense of youth and innocence and humour and entertainment gone? The film is brilliant.

Where to start:

The 3D effects are superb. I was dodging the piano as Alice went down the hole. The Cheshire Cat was delightful and camera big and camera small Alice was excellent.

The outfits were magnificent, from the Queen of Heart's giant head to the wedding dress of the white queen and as for the mad hatter's costume and make-up. WOW!

The score was equally appropriate.

The story was very well done. Rather than just doing Alice in Wonderland again (which I would love to see done anyhow) this goes on and picks up years later. So with a clean slate there's a whole new story and dimension from the hilarious real world beginning to the final ending when Alice finds herself.

And the acting on behalf of all of them was utterly approriate for the film. The hatters at the same time melancholy, humour and madness, the Cheshire Cats supersillious nature, Alice's discovering herself, the White Queen's ineffectiveness, the Red Queen's obsession and tweedle dumb and tweedle dee, simply superb. To deny any of their acting is to deny Lewis Carrol's mad world and the talent of Tim Burton. I think the characters were meant to be acted that way and the actors did it brilliantly.

What would I have changed? I would make the white queen a black queen as in spades and clubs. Burton has the skill to show that 'black' can be 'good' and the oppposite of red. I don't really see how 'white' fits in with Lewis' original idea of Wonderland....or pehaps I've forgotten over time.

And one concession, the hatter's dance was bizarre....and not bizarre in the Lewis or Tim sense of the word, but out of place and bizarre in the film. A dance was a perfectly good idea, but that dance was well....like watching a dance in World of Warcraft where it works....but not here in Alice.

So 9 decapitations out of 10. Fix the dance up and you'd be pushing my 10.