“Splayed out on the screen in pixelated, glimmering, hollow 3-D, Tim Burton‘s “Alice in Wonderland” is “inspired” by Lewis Carroll’s 1865 “Alice in Wonderland” and 1872 “Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There.” The phrase “inspired” is in quotes above because, bluntly, there’s not a moment of true inspiration in the entire film, just a series of moments demonstrating that Burton, more and more, has become a director content to use his tools as crutches. “Alice in Wonderland” follows Alice (Mia Wasikowska, rendered blank and bland by the script) as she returns to Wonderland and its characters, now a fully-grown woman. This time when Alice tumbles down the rabbit hole, it’s because she’s fleeing a dreary arranged marriage to a dreary man.
And once in Wonderland, Alice becomes the ultimate Tim Burton protagonist, which is to say that she wanders through a meticulously-designed fantasyland doing very little, meeting fantastic characters much more interesting than she is. Alice has only cloudy memories of her previous visits to Wonderland, and meets at every turn her old friends like Tweedledum and Tweedledee (Matt Lucas), the White Rabbit (voiced by Michael Sheen) and the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp, looking like the headliner in a hypothetical acid trip by the late fashion designer Alexander McQueen). Alice, we and she are told, is the only person who can defeat the Jabberwock and free “Underland” (apparently, Alice misheard it all those years ago, an empty fillip that adds nothing) from the tyranny of the petty, cruel Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter).
But Linda Woolverton’s screenplay doesn’t give us any reasons for this, moving between expensive and lead-footed set-pieces and unfunny, ostensibly whimsical wordplay before culminating with Alice clad in battle armor bearing the Vorpal sword to defeat the Jabberwock. This is exciting if you collect action figures, or wonder what Joan of Arc would look like given a makeover suitable for the racks at Hot Topic. It is not in any way thrilling if you are interested in character, motivation, coherent storytelling or anything other than Burton’s high-tech, high-cost puppet show, in which he jams his clumsy hands up into various literary figures and has them say what he likes before tossing them aside. The unanswered questions are many, and grow with each passing second (Why is Alice the savior? Why is the White Queen [Anne Hathaway] better than the Red?) and we are not given answers, merely spectacle.”
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Michele 03.05.10 at 11:02 pm
½ a star? That’s a bit harsh. I still plan on seeing it and from what I saw in the previews I never expected it to be a direct play by play of “Alice and Wonderland” but more of a re-imagined version. Gregory Maguire did it with “Wicked” in book form…why is it not acceptable for someone to do it in movie form. Anyways, you gave some thought provoking ideas that I will keep in mind as I watch and form my own opinion.
Larry 03.06.10 at 7:52 pm
About your review of Disney’s “Alice in Wonderland” you actually gave me a reason to accept this movie even more than before. You’re rigth about this movie being an “adaptation” of the Caroll books and it is as all artist try to put there either unique or common touch on any project. But with that in mind Burton actually put alot lot of the elements of the books into his movies (not just the story but the picture imagery fro the Caroll books as well) and his own sense grim touch it was a really good retelling of a very old story. The only version of Alice in any format more evil than the Caroll books or Burton’s movie is the video game Alice which had a picture of alice witha knife on the cover.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan of the Disney movie machine and this movie, with alll the CG & 3-D is just another eye candy for Disney. Good to see Burton use the money well since the CG was flawless. The acting was tiring and the ovie lasted at least 25 minutes past what it should’ve been but over all the movie wasn not as bad as you rated it.
I hope you can look past the the 3d/CG imagery when Prince of Persia comes out and give it a better look than get side tracked by all the eye candy.