Alice in Wonderland Review

As far as horror films go, The Crazies is a fun but mediocre entry in the genre. Some sequences in it are very inventive and suspenseful, though the film is bogged down by cliche characters and bad dialogue.

Oh wait, the title of this entry says its a review of Alice in Wonderland. Wait I haven't seen Alice yet, surely I would remember...

Oh wait, I did see it, a mere 13 hours ago. What was it about?

Well now that I have the title typed out I may as well review the damn movie.

To start things off, I was really excited when this was first announced. One thing that has always disappointed me about past adaptations of Alice in Wonderland is that they were always too kid friendly. I always thought that with the right direction and script we could get a very twisted, surreal, adult take on the classic story, and when I heard that Tim Burton and my favorite actor Johnny Depp would be bringing it to the screen yet again I got very excited.

Then the trailers hit and I saw yet again a very kid friendly take, this time surrounded by heavy duty CGI to boot. But early reviews were very positive so I thought that once again it was a case of bad marketing and I went in to the screening last night hoping to get the adult Alice I have always wanted to see.

I want my ten bucks back Tim Burton!

The first ten minutes or so of the movie, with Alice in our world were actually pretty solid, Tim Burton managed to restrain himself during these scenes and I kinda liked them though the plot lines set up in these early scenes like Alice's arranged marriage and her sister's husband committing adultry HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE REST OF THE FUCKING MOVIE!!!!

Then Alice falls down the rabbit hole to Wonderland, which is actually pronounced Underland, and the film goes downhill. She finds out that she is foretold to come to Underland, slay the evil Jabberwocky and free Underland from the tyrannical rule of the annoying as hell Red Queen.

Now the plot of Alice returning to Wonderland and finding it to be a twisted and different world has been done before in the well loved computer game American Mcgee's Alice. But that game took the intelligent route and went full on horror with the game. This movie seemed like it took the game and tried to make it family friendly, and hence my problem with the movie.

Part of the charm of the book that Wonderland was a world that prided itself on not making a damn bit of sense, and this film tries giving the characters motivations and back story and it just doesn't fit. The biggest problem arises with the characterization of The Mad Hatter. Obviously his role was expanded because of the popularity of the character and the fact that Johnny Depp is playing him. The Mad Hatter just doesn't seem, well, mad. Instead he seems more like "The slightly eccentric Hatter", and they also make The Hatter a key figure in Wonderland's rebellion; which I could never see him giving two shits about what happens in Wonderland. But the main flaw is by giving rhyme and reason to these characters that were meant to be absurd, most of the charm of the book is lost.

Also, during most of the movie I found myself yelling "EXPLAIN!" during most of the movie because there were gaping plot holes throughout. Questions like "Why is Alice so important?" and "Why doesn't she remember coming to Wonderland before?" were never answered. The movie also stops in its tracks at the end so that The Mad Hatter can perform one of the lamest celebration dances since the Ewoks at the end of Return of the Jedi.

I also just really fucking hated the CGI, Wonderland is supposed to be surreal, not a pure fantasy land. It just looks really tacky and fake at times, especially the CGI animals.

Not all things were bad in this, most of the performances were spot on. Johnny Depp did well as always despite the script completely missing the point of his character; the voice acting was excellent including Alan Rickman as The Caterpillar and Christopher Lee getting a whole two lines as the badass Jabberwocky. The poor man's Johnny Depp Cripin Glover once again goes out of his way to be creepy and annoying as The Knave of Hearts, who for some reason is made into a badass in this. As said before, Helena Bonham Carter is annoying as The Red Queen.

I guess the film just seemed like Tim Burton was on auto-pilot. The script feels like a really poor rip-off of the Alice game (a film adaptation of that has been in development hell for years). The performances are a combination of awesome and sleep walking, and the effects are terrible, aside from the awesome Jabberwocky at the end. It just seemed like a bad idea to turn Alice into an action hero (she even spouts one liners at the end), and the humor is forced and for the most part very childish. I don't know if Disney just had Burton by the balls or if he just didn't give a shit, but this goes down as my first big disappointment of the year.

Also, Tim Burton, I will take checks though cash is preferred.