So Tim Burton’s made a new version of Alice In Wonderland, has he? Well, I say Tim Burton, but actually it’s a vast swathe of people all coming together under the Burton/Disney brands to do it, as we as intelligent 21st century armchair experts all know.
EXCITEMENT
To tell you the truth, I was pretty excited when I heard this film was coming out. And I was enthused when I heard that they had Tim Burton down to direct it. Although in my mind all his best films are more than a decade away now (Beetlejuice, the Batman films, Edward Scissorhands, his work for Nightmare Before Christmas) and everything recent has been faintly disappointing, the Burton brand and the imagery that it suggests still stirs up a sense of confidence and excitement in me, despite myself. It’s probably because people like Michael Bay or McG make him look like bloody Orson Welles.
And so with my fond memories of the Disney cartoon and benefitting from a fresh reading of the Carroll stories I sat back and waited with bated fishbreath for the damn film to actually emerge.
Exacerbated by my love of the original books, the big problem was that between me first hearing the news that the film was coming and its actual arrival, pretty much everything I heard about it seemed destined to shake that confidence and excitement for it. The biggest concern for me was that for some unfathomable reason, the film wasn’t going to be a direct adaptation of the book/s at all, but some completely new story altogether. This just seemed ludicrous to me- like doing a film of the Bible but deciding instead to set it in a quasi-ludicrous future where Paul Bettany is a biomechanical stripper with an arachnid spider side-kick played by Jennifer Aniston, who then wins an Oscar for her multi-faceted portrayal. When the source material is so strong, why the hell feel the need to change it?
Aniston: Abuse magnet and DEFINITELY NOT in Alice In Wonderland
IDIOTS
The second alarm bell rang when I saw the teaser trailer, and it became horribly apparent that in this new film they were going to expand the Hatter role to the point of some sort of tragic hero, presumably to create a big enough shape for Depp to fit himself into. And with the sickly sweet hangover from the decidely average Charlie And The Chocolate Factory film still hanging in the air, I still needed some convincing that the glory days of the Depp/Burton partnership weren’t far behind us. Furthermore, with a new teenage Alice, and the terrifying news that this was going to be yet another 3D spectacular, the sound of nails being blankly hammered into a coffin by idiots was becoming all but deafening.
Example of an idiot
Another example of an idiot
And so it was with decidely unbated breath that I sat in the theatre to watch this thing, my expectations lower than they had been at any time since Transformers clanked and exploded onto the screen or I heard they were making another Predator movie and ‘promising to respect the expectations of the fans of the original films.’
PLEASANT
But I was pleasantly surprised to find there’s plenty to enjoy about this film. The real stars here are those wonderful people that made it look so great. The world of this film is so beautifully realised, it’s transporting and unique. The CG doesn’t jump out and tear out your eyeballs and there are plenty of moments where you can just sit in wonder at the whole thing- the sets and the costumes and the colours and the whole package visually is just first rate and exactly what I was hoping for.
Actorly wise, there’s a rag bag collection of all your usual people adding voices to the characters (I especially enjoyed Fry’s Cheshire Cat, which again looks absolutely perfect- although I wanted more menace), and a superb turn from Helena Bonham Carter as the Queen. And it’s always nice to see Crispin Glover in a film, although he doesn’t get chance to stand out here unfortunately. And Chris Lee is obviously the Jabberwocky of course.
UNFOUNDED
My reservations about them creating a whole new story rather than purely adapting the first book also proved to be largely unfounded. I wasn’t sure about late teens Alice escaping into Wonderland, but at least she didn’t have an iPhone and a hip hacker boyfriend, and it was a great way for them to combine the overarching worlds from both books (the playing cards, the chessboard) and include almost all the characters too, including the previously mentioned Jabberwocky. But no Duchess for some reason? One of the most memorable scenes in the Wonderland book, I was disappointed she didn’t make a fearsomely demented appearance.
The music, of course, is decidely average for reasons known only to the editors of Q Magazine (who love average music), and positively awful when the film blares out a load of anodyne American pop punk at you (WHY?!). This apparent lack of interest in the use of sound by the film-makers smacks of a galactic missed opportunity, for both incidental sounds and music. I love the Tom Waits ‘Alice’ album, which seems to capture perfectly the psychotically surreal and dangerous Wonderland of the books, with its cast of wickedly bizarre and unhinged chracters and potent imagery- ‘The baby’s asleep in the shoe/ Your teeth are buildings with yellow doors/ Your eyes are fish on a creamy shore.’ It’s a wonderfully evocative collection of music. Of course, I’m not suggesting for one minute that they should have used the Waits music for this most mainstream of movies (although that would have been nice), but they could at least have used their imagination a bit. And Paramore-esque pop punk of the most useless kind certainly has no place anywhere near Wonderland.
And whilst we’re on Waits, let’s talk about the role of the Hatter. A role now swollen to accomodate Depp, I couldn’t help but feel as I watched that despite all his many talents he couldn’t reach the full potential of the role. His appearance just didn’t quite fit for me for a start. Set in a Wonderland crushed by the tyrannical reign of the Queen of Hearts, this is a poignant and deeper character that takes the books as a jumping off point but has been developed and deepened in a satisfying way. Depp pulled this off adequately- treading that fine line between the absurd and the pathetic- but it wasn’t a standing ovation performance. I was concerned after Willy Wonka, but he carried it through nicely, although as with all the chracters here I felt a curious detatchment that prevented me from caring about him at all. I would still have preferred to see Tom Waits do it, but no one else (including the man himself) would likely want that.
It’s lucky that Depp does pull this off, because the real weak link in the cast for me was Alice. Perhaps it was the abundance of CG characters and the fact she would have been acting to thin air for most of the time, but I just wasn’t convinced. Despite her charms, this Alice spoke far too many of her lines as if she either didn’t understand them or didn’t know who the hell she was talking to. There were tears, but I didn’t care anymore than she did. Fine if they’re trying to play on her being a little girl, but to me she just seemed way out of her depth in most of her exchanges. If Alice is your path into this world and your avatar (!) within it, I just wasn’t bought in. Try again!
THE SHORE OF YOUR FACE WILL TURN TO BONE
In fact, aside from the bloody awful pop punk and the not quite Almost Alice but merely Adequate Alice, my biggest problems with this film were the unnecessarily climatic climax with the massive Lord Of The Rings style battle and the slightly too Harry Potter Jabberwocky, and the unexplained decision to change the name of the place from Wonderland to Underland. I had hopes this would be because the filmmakers were making some indication that this place was actually really some sort of dangerous afterlife or Underworld rather than a candy cane playpen for imaginative little girls who need to grow up. The aforementioned Waits music runs amok with this theme, (Who will put flowers on a flower’s grave?; Let the crows pick me clean but for my hat), and best of in all suggesting that Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole is actually like her being buried- ‘The rain makes such a lovely sound/ To those who are six feet under ground.’ Brilliant- longing for return, surreal, and dead all at once. So are they making some sort of similar suggestion here? Nah. It’s never clearly explained. So why change it? Who knows. Maybe Wonderland is too long to fit on a lunchbox or something.
DESPITE
So yes, despite my bitter cynicism, I actually fairly enjoyed this film. It’s not a classic, and if I’m wanting Alice I’d still rather watch the cartoon or read the book or listen to the album, but no way near as bad as I feared.
The 3D is pointless though. Whilst for Avatar I felt the 3D was warranted and added to the experience of the film, here I just felt it was an un-necessary ad on to make it more of an event movie.
All in all, 7/10. Disagree!?
Pablum from the (bio)Lablum 