Alice in Wonderland (2010)
I hope Lewis Carroll turns around in his grave when he watches this version of his “Alice in Wonderland”. That was about the most idiotic story I have seen for quite awhile and its level of smartness would lie somewhere between Kanokon and Arina Tanemura manga if it were not for the absolutely brilliant Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter.
So let’s see, what did I like about the movie: The 3D effects which were fun to watch (although it was difficult to keep those glasses on my nose); some of the characters (namely the red queen, the white queen and the mad hatter) were quite original and amusing; the stylishness that comes with all Tim Burton films. I guess that’s it. Everything else was an immensely horrible downfall, let’s rank them from less bad to the worst:
– Alice is a freakin’ adult who behaves like a 10 year old
– The story was amazingly straightforward and ended with some fight with a monster (LOL)
– Alice is being helped by a bunch of animals (can it get even more clichéd than that?)
– Alice’s face was shown all the time and unfortunately the girl just cannot act
– Alice’s character is a wannabe modern girl
– After coming back to the real world, Alice ends up “believing in the impossible” and sailing out to do trading with China; I can’t think of any possible ending that is even worse than that; this movie fails both at politics and at picturing society. But then again, after watching this movie I’m supposed to believe the impossible after all. Maybe I should have gone for the Nobel Prize.
– There is no genuine feeling between the characters, and if you ask me, there was not remotely anything genuine about the film at all. It exuberated at stylishness, but there was no connection or any warmth in the film at all (think Korean animated movies). Every single smile in that movie was fake. On top of that, every scene was unfortunately accompanied by dramatic and overly emotional (not to say kitsch) music.
In the end, I hated this movie a little bit less than “Big Fish” because I am a horrible sucker for the “Alice in Wonderland” motif and because I admit I have loved Alice’s dresses, but can I please get my money back?
PS. I need to watch a smart movie… like right now.
PPS. After watching this movie, I feel like I have already forgotten how many wonderfully subtly intelligent movies Tim Burton has made – Ed Wood, Edward Scissorhands, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory… it’s really sad. But then again, I cringe when I think of Big Fish and I feel the same about Alice in Wonderland.
Hehe, well, my reaction to the movie the day before yesterday was not utterly positive either, but I couldn’t claim I’d want my money back: it was too amusing. After the film some friends and me imitated the movements of the White Queen for the whole evening. XD And I especially liked the… rabbit at the tea party speeching out random stuff and throwing around with tea cups.
But YES, the ending (LOL?) and all the “everything is possible”-Disney-American-Dreamy mentality of the movie was so DREADFUL. And it’s definitely unworthy of the original. I am questioning the position of Tim Burton as one of my alltime favorite directors, hmhm. (Although, on the other hand, the film would have probably even worse, if any other director made it?)
Well at least you didn’t end up loving it or something. I believe the movie would have been much more fun if I had friends who made fun of the characters. My favorite was actually the mad characters too! They were the only fun ones.
Of course the movie is unworthy of the original, which is full of genuine creativity without packing it into a stupid monster of the day story dripping of morality. I think the problem is that if it wasn’t for Tim Burton, this movie probably wouldn’t exist. No other director would do the “Alice in Wonderland” story, no other director plays with fantasy so much, and truth to be told, no other story would fit Tim Burton so well. Maybe that’s also why I was disappointed.
By the way, oh my God how can Tim Burton be your favorite director XD I mean, sure, his movies are great, but as a director I just somehow can’t take him for serious as much? My favorite director is Jim Jarmusch, and somehow that’s the type of director I think of when you have to name favorites.
In honesty, wasn’t this version all about Tim Burton’s stylization and Johnny Depp + Helena Bonham Carter? That’s what I gathered from the hype anyway. The crazy characters he plays are always a riot. That alone is reason enough for me to have a look-see.
I kinda agree with you on Big Fish. It was stylish and all, but there was no heart. (LOL at the Korean animation analogy)
This is interesting because I’m finding an almost 50/50 mix of positive and negative reviews on this film, and I’m expecting to be surprised at how many changes were made to the story (I loved both of Carroll’s Alice novels).
Burton has a very unique style which fits some stories perfectly but sometimes I feel he overdoes it a bit. In his early films I suppose his vision was limited by budget but these days I think he needs to be reminded by his cast and crew when to restrain himself. I never liked the 1970s adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (tacky and waaay too dated) but Burton’s take was much closer to the novel…even so it felt like ‘too much of a good thing’ to me.
Edward Scissorhands and Sleepy Hollow are my favourites but Mars Attacks! was even funnier than I suspect even Burton intended because it came out around the same time as Independence Day and showed that up to be the blockbuster nonsense that it is.
A smart movie? I’ve been a bit out of it recently but I enjoyed Kamikaze Girls a lot. Very quirky and has some really pretty dresses. ^_^
Oh my, I’m looking forward to how much you’ll like it. You absolutely have to write about it when you come to see the movie! Well, as a woman I might be more sensitive to feminist stories and I dislike it strongly when I find them badly made. For me, feminism is just so much more than “Girl decides not to marry but to work” and like Shii said the “American dream” aspect of the end of quite shameful, especially for Tim Burton whose world normally isn’t such a black and white picture. His film endings typically are somewhat bittersweet.
The story of Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” is a re-make but some sort of continuation to the story. Alice has grown up (FAIL) and is back to Wonderland, but she forgot about it. While the original “Alice in Wonderland” has no tagline or moral to the story (which makes it so wonderful!) this movie all comes down to the glorification of girl power. A friend told me that he never read the books and couldn’t quite follow the story of the movie, but actually you don’t need the novels for that. (I love the books though, I even got myself this annotated copy where you learn all about Lewis Carroll’s loli fetishism and his love for the real Alice.)
For me, the perfect “Alice in Wonderland” has yet to come up for another aspect too. While literature has been full of it since forever, there’s this taboo of never showing sexual young girls outside of independent cinema and I don’t see it being broken anytime soon. It’s not like films should necessarily cater to pedophile phantasies, but not doing that at all feels like hypocrisy to me considering how popular the nymphet fantasy itself is. Where else should taboos like these be overcome if not in art? But I digress.
I have never seen the original series of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and also never read the novel, but I love the movie – maybe it’s because I never had anything to compare it to? I also have never seen the movies that are not as Tim Burton-ish like Batman or Mars Attacks as you have mentioned. Time to catch up on those.
I have seen Kamikaze Girls and blogged it under Shimotsuma Monogatari. Although I didn’t have much to say about it back then, I actually liked the movie a lot. If you watch it again, consider seeing the dubbed version! It might contribute to added hilarity, heh.
Well, after watching it I must admit that it wasn’t as bad as I expected. I think it was the fact that I knew they’d made changes to the story so concentrated on the characters and visuals instead.
It’s good that they tried to do something different from the novels but I agree that it could’ve been handled better…a bit of a missed opportunity there.
Alice’s wardrobe really was great but what made the film enjoyable for me was the supporting cast. I know Burton casts Depp in almost every film he makes but he really suited the role of the Hatter. The other actors were also perfect – Alan Rickman as a sarcastic catterpillar for instance, and Stephen Fry as the Cheshire Cat was perfect! I honestly thought it was Billie Piper as the White Queen rather than Ann Hathaway…I know I’m bad at recognising faces but I felt really stupid at making a mistake like that.
The whole film came across as a style over substance effort to me. But at least it all looked pretty!
Ohhh, yes it’s definitely style over substance and I also loved its style. (And the Cheshire Cat!) It’s nice that you ended up liking the film and enjoyed your time. The film definitely had a great number of wonderful actors, and I found it unfortunate that we didn’t see them more often. If Alice and her feminist storyline were kicked out, the movie probably could have turned out perfect, heh.