Alice in Wonderland
Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter
Rating: 3.5 Stars
One thing you can never take away from Tim Burton is that he is a visionary filmmaker. His movies are a feast for the senses and his Alice in Wonderland is no exception.
The images Burton has created will stay with you long after you've left the theatre. Burton and his computer wizards have taken the actors and distorted their bodies and heads.
Chief among these weird creatures is Helena Bonham Carter's The Red Queen whose enormous head sits on a squat body. Equally distorted is Matt Lucas of Little Britain fame who plays Tweedledee and Tweedledum. It's as much fun to wonder how these characters were created as to marvel at what Johnny Depp does with The Mad Hatter.
Even the voice work from people like Alan Rickman (The Caterpillar), Stephen Fry (Chesire Cat), Michael Sheen (The White Rabbit) and Christopher Lee (The Jabberwocky) is enthralling. All the actors obviously bought into Burton's vision and gave it their all.
What Burton doesn't have working for him is an equally captivating story, Granted Lewis Carroll's books were more about weird encounters than they were about a solid story.
Screenwriter Linda Woolverton has tried to give Alice a back story. She is now a 19-year-old girl who's supposed to marry an obnoxious nobleman on the very day she falls down the rabbit hole. This is her second voyage except she doesn't fully remember the first time as a young child.
What Woolverton gives us is sort of a cross between The Wizard of Oz and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe complete with an epic battle sequence between the forces of good (The White Queen) and the forces of nasty (The Red Queen). We've seen a version of this battle far too many times in recent years so it seems hackneyed.
Mia Wasikowka makes a charming Alice especially when she is befuddled. Crispin Glover is a great villain as The Red Queen's henchman.
Only Anne Hathaway as The White Queen is a dud. She's way too saccharine and silly and hardly the kind of ruler Wonderland deserves.
This Alice in Wonderland will most likely appeal to preteens but it is far too dense and scary for preschoolers.
The 3D is impressive when it is used but it is obvious Alice was not intended to be a 3D film. If you take off your glasses through much of it, the film looks the same as when you're wearing them. The technology in Avatar is lightyears ahead but Burton's vision is far more exciting than James Cameron's.
At times he makes you feel as if you might just have taken a whiff of what the caterpillar is smoking.
