Let me say right upfront that I’m not terribly familiar with Alice in Wonderland as source material. I have vague recollections of the original Disney animated Alice, and that’s about it. I’m actually going to check that one out again in the next few weeks and report back here afterwards, kind of do a contrast and compare of the animated vs. the Burton, but for now I’m just going to jot down my thoughts on this newest iteration. It’s now been the better part of a week since I saw this movie, so my thoughts may not be quite as clear as if I’d written this the next morning, I appreciate your patience with me.
I guess what I most felt upon leaving the theater when this newest version of Alice was over was....confused. I guess that’s hardly surprising given the source material, but it wasn’t the story that had me confused. What I was confused about was what had happened to me while in the theater. What I mean by that is that, on the whole, I found this to be not a terribly successful Tim Burton effort. The story being told never really grabbed hold of me as a viewer, I didn’t particularly feel invested in the events that were unfolding onscreen at any point. But then, right near the end, I found myself getting choked up and teary eyed as the tale neared it’s finale. It was this oddball outburst of emotion that had me confused, and still has me confused. I can’t point at any one thing in the movie and explain to you where it came from, even know so many days later I can’t clearly say what happened, but somehow Tim Burton was able to get to me, and I guess that says something, though I’m not exactly sure what.
Before we get to specifics, and in order to avoid spoilers, let’s talk basics. Do I recommend you go see it? Visually it’s a treat to look at. I can’t imagine Alice’s Wonderland in better hands than those of the decidedly skewed Mr. Burton. I don’t know who in Hollywood today could put a more topsy-turvy world, populated with a more unique bunch of characters together than Tim Burton. It’s a dark movie, and I wouldn’t recommend it for kids under the age of 10 or 12? Some strong performances are turned in by Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp (even if he is channeling a little too much of Capt. Jack Sparrow for my liking....) It’s always interesting to see where Crispin Glover will turn up, and he’s capable as the Red Queen’s Head of the Guard, and I wasn’t at all sold on Anne Hathaway’s take on the White Queen, I just didn’t understand what her whole demeanor was about for most of the movie. It was fun hearing Alan Rickman’s voice make a cameo appearance as the hookah smoking Caterpillar. I imagine the core audience for this movie is going to like it regardless, as I think Alice has a fanbase as rabid as some other fictitious stories out there, but for those who aren’t as dedicated to the story, I don’t know that you’re going to have a great time in the flick. The pacing of the movie is a sprint from start to finish, and it doesn’t totally feel like Burton is up to handling something that tries to move this quickly. Because it moves so fast, it feels like a lot of explanation is simply omitted as Alice dashes from one point to the next. The plot feels patchy at points, and some backstory is simply never explained at all. I’m sure the core fans will cry heresy at these statements, but those are my 2 cents, for what they’re worth. Obviously he did something right to get such an emotional reaction out of me in the final act, but what it was I couldn’t tell you. I don’t know whether that makes him subversive, clever, lucky, or genius.
DISCUSSION OF PLOT AND SOME SPOILERS FOLLOW - READ ON AT YOUR OWN PERIL
Let me repeat that I’m not terribly familiar with the source material, so feel free to correct any or all of what follows, and chalk it up to my ignorance regarding the text.
I guess what I’ve never been too clear on regarding this Alice is if it supposed to be the original story, or if it is supposed to be a kind of....I don’t know....sequel of sorts. Even the way the narrative works out, centering around the fact that Alice seems to have dreamt about Wonderland ever since she was a little girl (she’s of marrying age in the film) seems to lend itself to the idea that this is a follow up to the original story, but I’m not sure about that. This lack of clarity kind of puts the events of the rest of the film in question for me. Let’s look at an example or two to see what I mean.
My recollection of the original Mad Hatter is that he isn’t much more than a bit part in the story. Alice stumbles upon him and his infamous tea party, and then quickly moves on from there to some other adventure. In this story, Depp’s Mad Hatter is not only a pivotal character, but central to the entire plot, and this had me a bit off balance. Don’t get me wrong, Johnny Depp is a good actor, and he’s great at acting like a loon, but just because he’s good at it, and because he’s a big name and sure to get girls into the theater, doesn’t mean that you need to build the entire plot around him, do you?
Similarly, Helena Bonham Carter’s Red Queen is comically presented as having a bulbous head on top of a rather small body. She’s amusing, a tyrant, and yells “Off with their heads!” at all of the appropriate moments, but the choice to present her in such a fashion ties into a plot element that has all of the other individuals in her court wearing prosthetic noses, chins, or other body parts as a way to make themselves fit in with her own malformed nature. It’s an odd choice to make and, I think, an unnecessary one. Was this in the original story? The fact that the Red Queen is malformed and therefore her cronies all go around making themselves malformed too?
At the end of the day, what a lot of the movie felt like to me was that it had all of the hallmarks of the Alice in Wonderland story, but it kind of eschewed a lot of the original story. It’s got the White Rabbit, Red Queen, White Queen, Caterpillar, Cheshire Cat, Mad Hatter, and Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. But I feel like they basically plucked all of the most interesting characters and a few of the plot elements, and then just drafted a whole new story. I don’t remember the Jaberwocky, the Vorpol Sword, Crispin Glover’s character, the Mad Hatter being so essential, or other elements in this new Alice from the original story, but that could just be my failing memory. Anyone care to weigh in on this?
I’ll be back with thoughts on the animated flick in the next week or so, and maybe I need to read the book....?
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