As kids, Alice In Wonderland was definitely one of our favourite books and we all tend to look back at the first Disney adaptation with fondness and nostalgia. The same cannot be said for Tim Burton’s retelling of the Lewis Carroll classic. In a disastrous attempt to bring the story into the 21st century, he has butchered a small piece of the @rcade’s childhood – Tim Burton is a monster?!
Considering the fact that before this we were pretty big fans of the Tim Burton – Johnny Depp combination, it half feels like a betrayal to criticise Alice In Wonderland, but unfortunately it just doesn’t have enough going for it to be considered a good movie.
The tale of the girl who falls down the rabbit hole is known to most, but for those who have never had the pleasure of reading the book or seeing the animated Disney version, here’s what goes down in Tim Burton’s version. Alice (Mia Wasikowska) falls down a rabbit hole after fleeing from an awkward situation involving quite a large audience. She finds herself in what the natives call ‘Underland’ but she mistakenly calls it ‘Wonderland’. Apparently according to legend, Alice is supposed to slay the Jabberwocky belonging to the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) on the Frabjous Day. This will dethrone the Red Queen and restore her sister, the White Queen (Anne Hathaway) to power. So she must retrieve the Vorpal sword, the only weapon that can slay said Jabberwocky from the Red Queen’s castle with the help of some friends including The Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), White Rabbit (Michael Sheen), and Dormouse (Barbra Windsor).
The story is pretty simple, but somehow, Burton manages to make is confusing and complicated. The characters are weird for the sake of being weird. Anne Hathaway’s White Queen is infuriatingly miscast. Her stupid faces and airy voice almost made us turn this into a ‘We’ll watch it so you don’t have to’ segment! However, there were some redeemable casting choices, like Stephen Fry as the Cheshire Cat and Alan Rickman as the Caterpillar. As for Johnny Depp? Well according to some, he spends the entire movie playing Willy Wonka dressed in different clothing. We don’t feel that’s the case thankfully. He is just the right amount of mad for us. He mentioned in an interview that he used switching accents to highlight the transitions of madness, similar to a mood ring, which we thought was a nice touch. The only problem we had with Depp’s Mad Hatter was the god-awful Futterwacken dance near the end of the movie. We found it highly unnecessary.
The backdrop of Wonderland doesn’t provide quite the visual impact as something like Avatar, but is visually pleasing nonetheless. As for the score, Tim Burton reunites with his old pal Danny Elfman to provide another memorable soundtrack for fans. Here at the @rcade we get the feeling that if Disney hadn’t gotten their paws on Alice In Wonderland, Tim Burton would have ventured to make the characters darker, deeper, and more deserving of the Tim Burton tag. Alas, the movie to us will always be a washed out version of what it could have been.
