(Cool) Shite on the Tube – Film, TV, Comics, Games, Books, Genre Pop Culture.

Review

Alice in Wonderland – Movie Review

Although I have tried to reveal as little as possible about the plot, please do not read if you are afraid of knowing anything about the film beforehand.

Once upon a time a man named Charles Lutwidge Dodgson [who more commonly went by the name of Lewis Carroll] wrote about a little girl named Alice who fell down a rabbit hole. Carroll’s stories have become legends of the style of literary nonsense, and his personal life remains shrouded in mystery and controversy to this day.

The new release Alice in Wonderland sees Alice as a [much more socially acceptable] 19 year old embarking on a return trip to Wonderland [also known as Underland] yet not remembering her previous voyage.

The film begins at a garden party where Alice is to be proposed to by Lord Ascot. She is to agree, marry the Lord and become a doting housewife. All these decisions have been made for her before she even arrives to the party. She doesn’t want to be stuck making the decisions everyone else has already made for her – she runs off and of course, falls down the rabbit hole.

Once again we fall with her and some of the old favourite moments and characters from the source material remain – the Eat Me Cake and a Drink Me Bottle, the Cheshire Cat [delightfully played by Stephen Fry], the White Rabbit, the Blue Caterpillar and of course, the Mad Hatter. In the time Alice has been gone though, the Hatter has turned a different kind of mad. He has seen his home land ravaged by the rule of the Red Queen [Helena Bonham Carter], and at times seems so sad he may weep. It is a good performance by Johnny Depp, although his accent seems to skew from American, British and some form of Scottish depending on the Hatter’s mood. This may have been intentional, but ends up sounding simply jarring.

The Underland has been masterfully created by Burton and his team, surprisingly looking a bit less “Tim Burton-esque” than expected. The castles of the White and Red Queen have the feel of not-quite-right Disney Princess castles, and the design of the new armoured playing card army is gorgeous, as are the chess piece style warriors of the White Queen [and their battle on a checker board is just priceless]. Alice’s costumes were lovely, particularly her red dress, however it was a little strange that one of her dresses grew with her after she had eaten Eat Me Cake towards the beginning of the film, but no other costumes did [continuity error?].

The 3D is used in a similar style to Avatar from what I have heard [don’t kill me for not having seen it!] in the sense that it is mostly used to create depth in the field of vision. Luckily the “stick out to the audience” form of 3D is used sparingly for the most part, only a couple of times were there moments that seemed a little “made for 3D”.

Although I wouldn’t say it is an amazing film, Alice in Wonderland is visually entrancing and can appeal on certain levels to kids and to all of us big kids. It continues on a historically important story for a new generation. It simply feels though that there could be more. More story, more intrigue, more darkness. It almost feels though that Burton could have done such things and more with the film if only it wasn’t tied to the behemoth that is Disney.

Trailer

Get the Flash Player to see the wordTube Media Player.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Both comments and pings are currently closed.

About The Author

One Girl in Melbourne

Zoe writes the One Girl in Melbourne twitter blog as a way of spreading the weirdness and wonder of Melbourne and life – sadly she is not a spy, brothel worker or superhero as some of her followers believe, although 2 out of those 3 things would be awesome! And with a Bachelor of Arts under her belt, hopefully one day she can write a review she is happy with!

Bookmark This

  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Technorati
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • MySpace
  • StumbleUpon
  • Yahoo! Buzz
  • email
  • FriendFeed
  • Print
  • Twitter

Article Information

  • Posted: Sunday, February 28th, 2010
  • Author: One Girl in Melbourne
  • Filed Under: Film,Review
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments

Comments are closed.

Latest (Cool) Shite Shows