Lewis Carroll’s classic tales of Alice In Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass are is two of THE most loved and influencial texts in literature history, heavily ingrained into world culture and has inspired a whole swag of adaptations and imitators since the first publication in 1865. Its surreal visions have endured many different interpretations and visions, right up to the contemporary age, in a way distancing itself from the true events of the story into something flexible and can be used in an allegorical sense.
There has never been one truly iconic film version of Carroll’s tale, but some noble visions from the first 1903 silent adaptation, the all-star 1933 studio version, the 1951 disney adaptation, the all-star 1985 tele-movie, the amazingly disturbing and surreal 1988 Czech film Neco z Alenky aka Alice directed by Jan Svankmajer and the 1999 detailed and mostly faithful all-star mini-series.
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The latest adaptation is directed by the famed visionary director that is Tim Burton, who has created some of the most unique and eye-poppingly cool worlds in cinema history. This marriage of Carroll’s text and the world of Burton seemingly is a match made in heaven, however, one must look further through the looking glass.
Unlike other adaptations of Carroll’s Wonderland texts, Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland is a unique and fresh look at Wonderland (or Underland) playing as a somewhat risky “returns” tale. In this field there has been some underrated classics, such as Walter Murch’s dark sequel to the classic The Wizard of Oz with Return To Oz, as well as Steven Spielbergs’ heavily underrated 1991 Peter Pan returns to Never Neverland tale Hook, starring Robin Williams as a grown up Peter Pan who must learn to remember who he was to save his children. It is always an intriguing concept what a unique returns tale could bring to the legend, so going into this film, there is some intrigue.
The plot takes off after some flashbacks when a 19 year old Alice is about to be married off to a family of snobby lords. Worried about her womanly responsibilities and growing up in general, the White Rabbit appears, only to lure Alice back down the rabbithole to return to Wonderland, to discover some familiar situations and old friends, as well as Wonderland under enslavement of the Red Queen, in which with the help of her old friends, she must slay the evil Jabberwock to take back Wonderland for the good. While it does play as an intriguing concept and allegory, the film truly fails in many ways.
The main issue is the story, while good in concept, it really never lifts off the ground into something amazing, but in reality, something quite messy. It must be said first that the film should not be called Alice In Wonderland, it is not that story. Most of the characters used, including Tweedledee and Tweedledumb and others are uselessly put in the story for really no other reason for being there for the fans. The story lacks the episodic charm, the fun puzzles and adventure of the original story, but rather runs off the fumes of that original story. It references some of these aspects, such as the tiny door, the croquet, the King, the painted roses, the wild cook, but in the end they just remind what is lacking from this film, and what was so very important in the original story. Again, it is messy stuff, characters literally greet in bulk and take her to her mission in almost one big step. It happens all took quick and ineffectively.
The look of the film is quite something, detailed and surreal in glorious CGI, which is actually tolerable here and keeps Burton as a master visualist. However this is gravely hindered by the fact that these visuals show next to nothing of Wonderland. If one were to use Wonderland, one of the key things is to show it, especially if you have the aid of such special effects. Therefore it is highly disappointing in its coverage, again due to its fast, messy story. The cinematography, despite the effects, is rather dull too.
With the pull of Burton and Carroll, there is an all-star cast, which again, due to story elements, is mostly flat. Burton’s right hand woman, Helena Bonham Carter, plays the Red Queen, who is a treat to look at, what with her enormous head, and has great moments of excellent high classed snobbery, but in the end is quite lackluster, especially her very poor “Off With Her Head!”, which i must add, does not happen at all, she just seems to yell it out, loosing all meaning. Alan Rickman’s Blue Caterpillar plays as a wise guiding force, but in the end is quite uninspired. Matt Lucas as both Tweedledee and Tweedledum is on the other hand, inspired casting, and he is quite fun to look at, however, as mentioned is amazingly useless. Anne Hatherway’s White Queen has a great fluid movement to her, but really nothing more, she is underwritten and dull. Barbara Windsor’s Dormouse is very useless and annoying, as its only use is to stab people in the eye and Timothy Spall’s Bayard the bloodhound also is dull character work.
On the other hand Stephen Fry is wonderful as the voice of the Cheshire Cat, who is very strange and mysterious. The cat is also very well animated and is highly arresting to look at. He also put to good use in the story. Its lovely to see the talented Crispin Glover as the Knave Of Hearts, he is creepy and good to look at, however his CGI body doesnt quite work. Michael Sheen is great as the quivering, paranoid White Rabbit, who is very well animated too, as well as Paul Whitehouse’s March Hare who is fantastically mad, and makes for possibly the most humourous character of the piece.
Now for two more important characters. The film marks the 6th collaboration of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, one of the strongest working partnerships in Hollywood history, spanding 20 years. This time Depp plays the iconic Mad Hatter, here given a much great weight on the story than much of the other characters, which is quite unfair. With the greater focus, we are given greater depth. Depp, despite using his usual oddball creepy european shtick, works somewhat well. He is great to look at, as maddness and the mercury poisoning is quite visable. His schizophrenic approach, slipping from quiet english to passionate scottish makes for good, mad layers, but a downfall is the character lacks the edge it could have had, it really fails to be as truly mad as it could be.
The other important character is of course, Alice herself, played here by young Australian newcomer Mia Wasikowska. Originally skeptical she could be a convincing Alice, she proves to be quite charming. She is dull in a positive manner, one where she seems quite plain, but is deeper, her eyes reflect a previous adventure as Alice should, she is never quite grounded like the other characters in reality, but rather daydreaming of somewhere else,. She presents her dialogue in an effective and sweetly offbeat manner, making her Alice very likable. Whether this is a character trait or a personal one will decide if she will have a successful career, as dull offscreen and in other roles would not help. But here, she works very well in the story as a whole, especially by way of an older Alice who is approaching womanhood.
It must be said that Tim Burton is but a shadow of his former self, as this is the man who created such dark and edgy visions as the, quite frankly awesome, surreal black comedy Beetlejuice, which not only moved at an extreme pace, it presented both a great reality world and a great surreal ghost world, in which both were hilarious, scary and sharply written, composed (by a fantastic Danny Elfman), directed and had some of the best performances from its actors, being Michael Keaton, Geena Davis, Alec Baldwin and Winona Ryder and others. He also achieved this same magic for his Batman films, strong edgy visions, that explore a dark engaging world with great characters and music. This was again proved with his classic tale Edward Scissorhands, where he had all these elements, with an added heart which is ever effecting.
Skipping to the contemporary age, Burton seems to have become mellow with age, being at the top for 20 years making him obviously feel safe. The past decade he has produced a string of soft, visual heavy, non-contemporary tales and adaptions. Save for Big Fish, which was okay, the rest failed to reach his previous glory and have come off as standard and highly unmemorable and disappointing. He needs to find some sort of invigoration with his career, to dare to expand his limitations, try working outside Johnny Depp and fantasy, as it becomes like flogging a dead horse. He needs something new, maybe something more grounded and edgy in storytelling, instead of heavy on effects.
In addition to this, it must be mentioned that Danny Elfman has also become a shadow of his former self, with his score essentially standard fare, not particularly as daring as his earlier scores in Beetlejuice, Batman and Edward Scissorhands. He seems far too comfortable in just reusing his choir i uninvented ways.
Danny! Bring some youthful Oingo Boingo magic! And that Avril Lavinge song at the end is horrible, just horrible.
So, in the end, this film is quite standard in almost every fashion, and is thus disappointing, but it is still watchable, with some nice scenes, such as when Alice stumbles over the chopped off heads for example. The film may have fare alot better if it told Burton’s vision of the original story (the flashbacks proved to be the most engaging), as with already fantastic material, he is able to bring this story to life in a new and unique Burton-esq way, instead of bringing a new story, something audiences really do not want with Wonderland. We can hope that Burton and Elfman wake up and realise what they are doing, as well as down the line, finally see a faithful, well written and visually arresting adaptation of the story every boy, girl, man and woman so adores.
2/5
