I didn’t quite know what to expect from this film. I am a fan of Burton’s films, he being one of four quirky directors who work in (and around) the mainstream and put fantastical imagery I adore up on the screen and whose names bring me promptly to the cinema – the others being Terry Gilliam, Guillermo Del Toro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Promotional images from the film showed a very strange aesthetic – heads too big for bodies, neck-less round bodies and mad-looking makeup. Burton and his main box-office pull Johnny Depp went on Jonathan Ross to talk about how Pirates of the Caribbean opened a lot of doors, and came across as likeable, personable and somewhat mad. I held off going to see it for a few weeks so that I could go with the family, and still I went to the cinema without knowing much of what I was to see.
While there was much to like about the film, it wasn’t what I would call great. I did not dislike it, but it was certainly not a visionary piece of genius, and nor could it move me. There was no depth to it, and while there was spectacle, comedy and some excellent casting – I particularly liked Stephen Fry embracing his creepy side as the Cheshire Cat, and the way Anne Hathaway (who’s come a long way since her days of dubbing Ghibli films!) played the white queen as graceful and floaty only until she got distracted – but the whole thing was lazily plotted, surprisingly unoriginal and had none of the charm of even the Disney animation, let alone the book.
And it was the Disney version this built upon, this being after all billed with the old ‘Walt Disney presents’ prefix: Tweedledum and Tweedledee appearing without Alice ever having gone Through the Looking Glass, no Mock Turtle or Duchess to be found etc. The story is something of a ‘Return to Wonderland’ (if Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There were not already filling that position), with an older, adult Alice going back to the world she visited in her childhood (‘You’d think she’d remember all this’), soon to discover that she has to fulfil that staple of lazy plotting, a prophecy.
Like the other aforementioned directors, Burton is at his best when his flights of fancy are anchored by some realism. It can be quirky realism, but there needs to be convincing normality to contrast the insanity with. The father’s tall stories are coupled with the young son’s cynicism, the mischievous poltergeist comes into the lives of an ordinary family and the man with scissors for hands attempts to fit into ordinary, if somewhat distorted, suburbia. Here, the framing of Alice’s life as a misfit in Victorian society just didn’t cut it. The writers just couldn’t do convincing Victorian dialogue and peppered the lines with grammar so anachronistic it seemed almost to be making a statement, and I’m not just talking about not getting subjunctives right. It was all so exaggerated and impossible that it didn’t provide a believable base for the rest to build upon. Beyond that, I didn’t quite get how Alice resisting following the prophecy, but eventually realizing she must comply and bowing to the inevitability of her fate somehow translates to her in the real world coming to understand she did not have to do what she’s supposedly fated to.
And I think this film will be remembered as very much of its time, aimed at a generation that needs everything on screen to be an epic fight. Disliking the idea of a whimsical journey through Wonderland, Burton, like Gilliam before him, brings in the Jabberwocky poem to try and make an epic of swords and dragons. And like Gilliam, who at least had the excuse of inexperience and low budget, he makes a bit of a mess. Is there really a need to have well-loved children’s characters brawling with swords and hat-pins? What’s next, Winnie the Pooh leading the charge against frumious war-heffalumps? Sure, Alice looks great in a suit of fitted armour, but is it really necessary to have a big battle scene to bring a film to a climax?
I still liked this film more than I disliked it. It was lovely to look at, and the combination of live-action and animation was impressive, especially on Helena Bonham-Carter, whose Red Queen, despite my reservations, was actually marvellous – the character design just doesn’t translate too well to a poster. Matt Lucas as Tweedledum and Tweedledee was a joy, and I never though Barbara Windsor would sound so cute. Johnny Depp was fine as a supporting character, but wasn’t anything too remarkable, and Alan Rickman really needs to come up with a slight variation to his drawl for different characters. The 3D was slightly underwhelming but undeniably the whole thing was a feast for the eyes.
In short, it was worth seeing as a little juvenile variation on the Alice mythos. It contained strong performances and impressive action sequences, and at least one visual innovation, the consistent distortion of actors’ bodies. But this Wonderland was curiously lacking in wonderment, emotional impact or compelling story.
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