Alice in Wonderland

I hadn’t really anticipated writing about this movie, as I hadn’t anticipated seeing it.  You see, while I do enjoy a couple Tim Burton movies, (Ed Wood, Mars Attacks!), I am not a fan of his overall work. I absolutely loathe his remakes, and his Batman films are a travesty to their namesake.

I don’t count movies such as James and the Giant Peach and 9, since he only served as Producer, which fuels my fire, as the true talents, (Henry Selick and Shane Acker), often miss on the credit they deserve because they’re clouded by the Burton name)

So you see, I’m not the first person someone would think of to write about a Burton film, much less ANOTHER remake, but during a visit to my sister in law’s house, it was put on the tele and I gave it a go. I was actually planning to fall asleep to it, since it was kind of late, but I did manage to stay awake for the entire movie. Now you, dear reader, get to read what I thought!  Oh, how fortunate for you!

Ok, first things first: this is not entirely a remake. It was actually written as a sequel to the original story. It stands as a continuation some years later from whatever form you saw/read/heard the original in. Alice is older and embedded in high crust British society, being propositioned for marriage by a complete doofus. Alice isn’t exactly thrilled with being expected by everyone to say yes and live out a pre-planned life.

Cheshire by Fry

During the proposal, she cuts out and follows the white rabbit, leading to her falling down the proverbial hole. You know how things go from there, as the story doesn’t really deviate much from the original, with the exception of the fact that the peeps in Wonderland have been searching for Alice, the Alice, (and finding several wrong ones), for a long time.

That is, until they find THIS Alice.  You see, the Frabjous day is approaching, and the White Queen needs her champion Alice to defeat the Jabberwocky, which happens to be the Red Queen’s champion. There are rules in place that each must abide by, and each hopes their champion wins so they can either take back their rightful place, (White Queen), or continue on with their reign of terror, (Red Queen).

Ok, so we all know how that goes down, no real surprises there. Been there, done that with regards to the whole Alice story, even if it is updated with a new ending and slight variations of the original story.  How are the performances and the CGI? The former leads into the latter, so let’s start with the former.

I would say that the acting was decent, but nothing extraordinary. Yes, that even goes for the incomparable Johnny Depp, and I will tell you why. It is because Johnny seems to have forgotten what an accomplished actor he really is. It seems that within the last decade or so, he’s just been playing these cartoon characters. We all know he can act, and act really well, so why not do that again, Johnny? Many may say ‘he’s having fun’, but I think they really mean to say ‘easy money’. I think he needs to seek out some roles where he can cut loose and get into method again, aka Fear and Loathing, or the aforementioned Ed Wood.

It’s especially bad in these Burton films. I think that they have worked together so often that they are at a place where they don’t even have to try anymore. People see Burton/Depp, OH MY GOD MUST SEE! Yet neither bring anything new, challenging, or even interesting to the screen.

White Queen by Hathaway

What about Crispin Glover, who was a drawing point for me? His performance is ok, pretty standard Crispin fare, actually, although he doesn’t overact it like he can do at times. He plays the character alright, but it’s the terrible CGI body they’ve given him that detracts from his performance. It just looks really poor. His limbs are like some sort of semi-stiffened rubber. They really tried to make his body move natural, but it just ends up looking very awkward.

The lead actress, Mia Wasikowska, fared well, but I wouldn’t say it was the movie debut/breakout lead of the year, like I’ve seen claimed on commercials, (that honor still lies with Robin Wright in the Princess Bride).

Anne Hathaway was amusing as the White Queen in the few scenes she had. I enjoyed seeing her play up the more ‘Princess’ aspect of this fairy tale, in regards to her movements and speech. In fact, she’s my favorite human character in the whole movie. It was good to see her having fun in her role and playing up the comedic aspects of her character.

I really did enjoy the way they portrayed the Red Queen.  Not Helena Bonham Carter so much, she was alright, but the big head they put on her. I also enjoyed the way her head would change size a bit in different scenes. This also goes for the large eyes they added to Johnny Depp. That actually looked very real and was well done.

I can’t really comment on voice over performances, such as Alan Rickman as the caterpillar, (which really didn’t look all that great). I mean, he’s Alan freaking Rickman, of course he sounds good!  Stephen Fry is also good, and his character was my favorite in the whole movie. Yes, the Cheshire Cat. I think they did a bang up job on the cat and he looks right in place with the human actors, floating about, and Fry’s voice acting really captured the personality of the cat. Tweedledee and Tweedledum looked like crap and that’s all I’m going to say about them. The soldiers for both the White and Red Queen looked really cool, too. Kind of plastic, in their uniformly colored armor, and hup-hup-hupped along like soldiers should.

Poorly dressed Hatter by Depp.

The CG backgrounds certainly looked good, probably what most would expect Wonderland to look like. The live actors blended pretty well, for the most part. There were quite a few instances where you could tell where the actors ended and the CG began with that sort of ‘floaty look’ that they get when doing green screen work. I think that hurts the mood of the movie, as it takes you out of the world they are trying to get you into. Regardless, the acting and story wasn’t really doing much to take me into that world to begin with, so it wasn’t much of a long trip for me to feel disconnected from the movie.

I can only imagine how it looked in 3D, and I don’t type that in a positive way. I am not a fan of this 3D resurgence, mainly because it has not managed to get any better in the past 50 years, (Cameron’s 3D aside, (Avatar), which is done in a completely new way). Now they want us to take 3D into our homes by buying new sets, when they’ve barely managed to get half the population to upgrade to HD television sets…but I digress.

All of my complaints about 3D and CGI is moot, really, as I know that I am not the stick with which to measure the ‘reality’ of those backgrounds. Many really liked it and thought it looked just fine. I should note that I watched this on an SD set on DVD, and I could still really see the whole green screen effect. I only mention this because more often than not, they blend together quite well in standard definition due to the lower resolution. It’s once you start watching stuff like this on blu-ray on an HD set where you REALLY notice the flaws, so I can only imagine what I would think if I were to view this with an HD/blu-ray.

In the end though, more important than criticizing the technology behind the movie, there is one element that can be much more important to any movie than special effects, and actually make you forget about any poor CGI altogether. That element is charm, and I think that charm is the one thing missing from this movie. It had little to none. It just felt like the same movie Burton has been making the last 10 years or so, only with more CGI and with the performances being phoned in over a green screen.

Red Queen by Bonham.

I don’t think that technology robbed this movie of its charm. No, you can have both, but the movie itself was just so reliant on computer graphics, trying so hard to take the viewer into the world of Alice, that something was lost along the way. It almost feels like Burton is being lazy, just going through the motions and not really trying to capture that element that his earlier movies had. I confess I was also expecting to see more of Burton’s trademark on this, to see a much darker Alice, but alas, it wasn’t there. I think that was what contributed mostly to the lack of charm, at least in my view.

One other thing that rubbed me the wrong way with this movie was that it basically went into action movie mode at the end. Yes, the big showdown should definitely be more exciting than watching a dragon, er…Jabberwocky and a girl with a sword and armor arm wrestling, but I really felt that the whole tone of the movie shifted at this time, and not in a good way.  Alice even said a bad one liner at one point, which is fine if you’re Arnie or Sly, but in this? No, I expected a touch more class, especially considering the world that Burton was trying to create and draw us into, which is one of wonder and amusement, not action movie clichés.

Now I know that the majority really dug this movie, and that’s cool. While I enjoy the Alice story, I just didn’t get into this one much. As I’ve noted before, I wasn’t feeling like I was taken to the place they wanted me to go. I think that if Burton had unleashed some of his previously known charm and perhaps made his version a bit darker in tone and mood, he would have hit upon something special. As it stands, it just feels like he’s going through the motions that are expected of him, and is no longer challenging viewers, or himself.

Although, I will say that this remake is at least the best remake/re-imagining that Burton has done. I won’t even mention the completely terrible job he did on destroying the beloved Willy Wonka movie, or the twisterrific Planet of the Apes.

Oh wait, I just did.

Author: Devon

A dude who likes movies. Well, most of them.

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