Featured Film: Alice in Wonderland
B
ANYONE GOING TO this movie expecting something resembling Lewis Carroll’s 1865 book will be sorely disappointed. Aside from the list of characters, the film is not even remotely like either of Carroll’s books, and is instead constructed very much according to the vision of director Tim Burton.
For starters, the titular Alice is nineteen in this movie—a good twelve years older than she’s supposed to be. She follows the rabbit down the rabbithole while fleeing the most awkward engagement party ever and ends up in Wonderland, which is now known as Otherland.
Otherland, true to form, looks like what a combination of mushrooms and LSD might do to your brain. Immediately after landing, Alice is accosted and finds out that she has been here before but doesn’t remember it. She also finds out that the followers of the White Queen need her to kill the Jabberwocky to free them from the terrifying rule of the Red Queen.
What follows is a strange mimicry of The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings, including the strangest shot of Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter charging into battle looking alarmingly like LOTR hero Aragorn.
Visually, the movie is one of Burton’s best. He masterfully combines live action with animation, fitting Helena Bonham Carter’s head onto a body too small for it. As more of the film’s animated characters and fantastic settings are introduced, it begins to look more and more realistic.
Unfortunately, while Burton is mastering computer-generated imagery better than others, some of the acting falls terribly flat, especially any scenes that take place outside of Otherland. Unfortunately, these are the scenes central to Alice’s growing up.
Inside Otherland though, Depp and Bonham Carter shine. Depp’s character is oddly sympathetic given his tendencies to take on a thick Scottish accent and bellow sheer nonsense. Bonham Carter, as the evil Red Queen, commands executions like the petulant child the character really is. Anne Hathaway as the White Queen is rather flat, but so are all truly good queens. Newcomer Mia Wasikowska does a fair job as Alice but, compared to all the other extraordinary characters in the movie, she’s just too normal.
Since most of the movie takes place in this strange world, it is for the most part quite entertaining, and clearly proves that Burton works better in a world inside his own head instead of the world in which he actually resides.
