Alice in Wonderland (PG)
I was lucky enough to attend the midnight showing of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland at the
Monaco, sponsored by the Melting Pot, who put on a special Wonderland themed menu for the
occasion. It was an excellent and quirky lead-in (kudos to the chef whose idea it was to put
Pop Rocks on the salad) to a fantastic film, one which I think tops Burton’s already
impressive list of credits.
The movie starts with the child-like Alice we’re all familiar with expressing her concern that
her dreams of Wonderland mean that she’s gone mad. Her father lovingly confirms that she is indeed “bonkers” but reassures her that all the best people are. From here, we meet the grown-up
version of Alice, a Burton invention, but one which works very well, given his obvious devotion to the
source material.
From the beginning, there are subtle, smart, and well-executed allusions to Lewis Carroll’s
masterpiece. Alice doesn’t remember her childhood Wonderland experience, but there are still
many references that will please fans of the books. When she follows the White Rabbit, a
high-strung CGI creation who finds the tendency of animals outside of Wonderland to go around
without clothes vulgar, down the rabbit hole trying to escape a truly awful public spectacle,
we see her go through the motions of her past visit, making all the mistakes she had as a
child. This leads the Dormouse, armed as menacingly as one can be with a needle, and the
disapproving flowers in an all-too short appearance, to believe that the White Rabbit has
brought them the wrong Alice.
What works about the grown-up version of Alice is that she spends the film making things
happen, whereas in the book, things simply happened to Alice the child. There is a particularly
great scene with Bayard the bloodhound where Alice takes charge of her destiny. There is no
sitting on a toadstool and crying, and the ultimate show of strength, a metaphor for the path
Alice must ultimately choose in the real world, is a battle to restore Wonderland to the weird
but pure-hearted White Queen (Anne Hathaway).
The CGI effects are truly stunning. Any single frame of film viewed alone would be
spectacularly and artfully detailed. The costumes are beautiful, and I loved the clever ways
that Burton deals with the fact that Alice’s clothes don’t grow and shrink as Alice does
several times over the course of the narrative. The digitally created characters are
painstakingly detailed, the tweaker-like March Hare, the caterpillar voiced by Alan Rickman,
and the Jabberwocky especially so. The Cheshire Cat is pitch-perfect and is a definite
highlight of the film, showing up unexpectedly but not being overused. Even Helena Bonham
Carter’s digitally altered physique as the large-headed (in both senses) Red Queen comes off
well.
Johnny Depp, basically the face of the film as the Mad Hatter, plays the role of a crazy person
in his typical, often brilliant, nuanced style. In turns, he is ridiculous, slyly subversive,
and heart-breakingly sincere. His spin on the character is, like the Burton adaptation as a
whole, innovative without ruining the connection to the source.
There are many people who have considered Burton’s adaptions, especially his update of Willy
Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, wrong-headed and ruinous. As a long-time Burton fan, I
whole-heartedly disagree. In the case of Alice, some will be peeved that it didn’t follow the
book more closely, but the simple fact is that very few people would have been entertained by
the wealth of Victorian satire that runs through the book. There are a few rather stupid
inventions that were to me unneccessary (the dance at the end springs to mind), but it hardly
factors in given the quality of the work as a whole. For fans of Wonderland, this is a welcome
addition to the franchise.
Alice in Wonderland (PG) – Movie Review by Kate Moon
I was lucky enough to attend the midnight showing of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland at the Monaco, sponsored by the Melting Pot, who put on a special Wonderland themed menu for the occasion. It was an excellent and quirky lead-in (kudos to the chef whose idea it was to put Pop Rocks on the salad) to a fantastic film, one which I think tops Burton’s already impressive list of credits.
The movie starts with the child-like Alice we’re all familiar with expressing her concern that her dreams of Wonderland mean that she’s gone mad. Her father lovingly confirms that she is indeed “bonkers” but reassures her that all the best people are. From here, we meet the grown-up version of Alice, a Burton invention, but one which works very well, given his obvious devotion to the source material. (more…)
