[40%] 
EDIT: Poll question isn't showing for me... Incase you can't see it unless you highlight, it say's "Do you think I should make my own mega thread with my movies/tv reviews and suggestions and what not?"
There I finally got off my lazy butt and decided to review the movie.
The first thing you have to know about Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland is that it makes no effort whatsoever to follow the book loyally. I find this very odd, personally, because he had stated that he wanted to create an adaptation that surpassed Disney's original as the go-to "definitive version", and because he made such an effort to have his vastly superior version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory follow the book more closely than Gene Wilder's insipid original (yeah, kill me), give or take one clumsy, clunking inconsequential side plot or two.
He doesn't adapt, and he doesn't "re-imagine". Instead, what he has made is a sort of sequel to the two Alice books by Lewis Carroll, but it doest always seem to work out to well. As I expected of Burton , every thing's all gloomy and emo, Alice is substantially older than she was in the books (we even get a flashback to her first adventure in Wonder... er, sorry, in Underland, which recreates the books' most popular scenes), and most of the characters look not just silly but grotesque, evil, and menacing.
The March Hare talks and behaves like he belongs in a straitjacket, and the look in his eyes is that of a knife murderer. The Cheshire Cat speaks in a disturbing, oddly seductive voice and his grin is filled with dozens of jagged yellow teeth. The Caterpillar is voiced by Alan Rickman (need I say any more?). Tweedledee and Tweedledum would hardly look out of place in dark suits and shades, standing behind the desk of a mob boss, and the Mad Hatter is a wide-eyed, wild-haired, rapid-fire abomination, a mutant cross between a Cirque du Soleil performer and just about every "outsider" character Johnny Depp has ever played, particularly Willy Wonka, Captian Jack Sparrow, and Ed Wood. He also has this crazy thing where his eyes turn all black and he starts screaming in a voice like Darth Vader; no joke. Only the White Queen, the White Rabbit, the Bloodhound (was he in the books? I honeslty can't remember, it's been a while since I've read the books) and the Dormouse look in any way benevolent.
By far, the most fascinating character is Helena Bonham Carter as the villainous Red Queen, who's not the Red Queen at all but the Queen of Hearts; no idea why Burton chose to merge the two characters into one, for this is the same croquet-playing, tart-loving decapitation fetishist we all remember.
Not only does she get all the best lines, she's delightful to look at with that big head, which she is in fact very self-conscious of and even demands that everyone in her service wear some kind of prosthetic deformity so she doesn't have to feel so bad about herself! Her personality was subtly altered, though, but in my opinion this was for the better: no longer a threatening monarch, the Queen is now something of a spoiled little kid prone to throwing outrageous hissy fits, and everyone must appease her because she commands the Jabberwock, you see.
Sadly, Alice herself is extremely uninteresting. The actress wears the character well, but she does a lot of bitching and whining that gets really old really fast which tended to get on my nerves, which is possibly why the film keeps cutting her off to show us what the Hatter and the Cat are doing. Also, they changed her last name from Liddell to Kingsley. Why? No clue.
As for whether or not the movie is good... well, I honestly don't know what to tell you. You've probably already decided whether you want to see it or not, so follow your gut. The film is kind of a hodgepodge and... well, this is going to sound very strange, but given the source material, I think it can be forgiven.
It makes too much damn sense.
There, I said it.
Alice in Wonderland is just not the sort of story that can be rearranged into a linear narrative. It's a little like The Catcher in the Rye and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in that sense; any conventional attempt to adapt it into a visual medium has a higher-than-average chance of crashing and burning, but there's just so much fascinating stuff to adapt that filmmakers can't keep their hands off it. Though Tim Burton's attempt is by no means a failure (it's nowhere near as big a disaster as The Wolfman, the last film I reviewed), I really can't bring myself to call it a success, either. We haven't been dealt a great hand, but if you feel confident enough, go ahead and play it anyway. There really isn't much to lose.
In final, it looked like Alice, but it didn't feel like Alice...
Final Grade: B-
There I finally got off my lazy butt and decided to review the movie.
The first thing you have to know about Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland is that it makes no effort whatsoever to follow the book loyally. I find this very odd, personally, because he had stated that he wanted to create an adaptation that surpassed Disney's original as the go-to "definitive version", and because he made such an effort to have his vastly superior version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory follow the book more closely than Gene Wilder's insipid original (yeah, kill me), give or take one clumsy, clunking inconsequential side plot or two.
He doesn't adapt, and he doesn't "re-imagine". Instead, what he has made is a sort of sequel to the two Alice books by Lewis Carroll, but it doest always seem to work out to well. As I expected of Burton , every thing's all gloomy and emo, Alice is substantially older than she was in the books (we even get a flashback to her first adventure in Wonder... er, sorry, in Underland, which recreates the books' most popular scenes), and most of the characters look not just silly but grotesque, evil, and menacing.
The March Hare talks and behaves like he belongs in a straitjacket, and the look in his eyes is that of a knife murderer. The Cheshire Cat speaks in a disturbing, oddly seductive voice and his grin is filled with dozens of jagged yellow teeth. The Caterpillar is voiced by Alan Rickman (need I say any more?). Tweedledee and Tweedledum would hardly look out of place in dark suits and shades, standing behind the desk of a mob boss, and the Mad Hatter is a wide-eyed, wild-haired, rapid-fire abomination, a mutant cross between a Cirque du Soleil performer and just about every "outsider" character Johnny Depp has ever played, particularly Willy Wonka, Captian Jack Sparrow, and Ed Wood. He also has this crazy thing where his eyes turn all black and he starts screaming in a voice like Darth Vader; no joke. Only the White Queen, the White Rabbit, the Bloodhound (was he in the books? I honeslty can't remember, it's been a while since I've read the books) and the Dormouse look in any way benevolent.
By far, the most fascinating character is Helena Bonham Carter as the villainous Red Queen, who's not the Red Queen at all but the Queen of Hearts; no idea why Burton chose to merge the two characters into one, for this is the same croquet-playing, tart-loving decapitation fetishist we all remember.
Not only does she get all the best lines, she's delightful to look at with that big head, which she is in fact very self-conscious of and even demands that everyone in her service wear some kind of prosthetic deformity so she doesn't have to feel so bad about herself! Her personality was subtly altered, though, but in my opinion this was for the better: no longer a threatening monarch, the Queen is now something of a spoiled little kid prone to throwing outrageous hissy fits, and everyone must appease her because she commands the Jabberwock, you see.
Sadly, Alice herself is extremely uninteresting. The actress wears the character well, but she does a lot of bitching and whining that gets really old really fast which tended to get on my nerves, which is possibly why the film keeps cutting her off to show us what the Hatter and the Cat are doing. Also, they changed her last name from Liddell to Kingsley. Why? No clue.
As for whether or not the movie is good... well, I honestly don't know what to tell you. You've probably already decided whether you want to see it or not, so follow your gut. The film is kind of a hodgepodge and... well, this is going to sound very strange, but given the source material, I think it can be forgiven.
It makes too much damn sense.
There, I said it.
Alice in Wonderland is just not the sort of story that can be rearranged into a linear narrative. It's a little like The Catcher in the Rye and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in that sense; any conventional attempt to adapt it into a visual medium has a higher-than-average chance of crashing and burning, but there's just so much fascinating stuff to adapt that filmmakers can't keep their hands off it. Though Tim Burton's attempt is by no means a failure (it's nowhere near as big a disaster as The Wolfman, the last film I reviewed), I really can't bring myself to call it a success, either. We haven't been dealt a great hand, but if you feel confident enough, go ahead and play it anyway. There really isn't much to lose.
In final, it looked like Alice, but it didn't feel like Alice...
Final Grade: B-
Last edited by Pinata on March 9th 2010, 12:01 am; edited 1 time in total
