Charlie Dorf
I have, even since I was a little child, never been a big fan of Disney movies (not to be confused with Pixar movies since Toy Story is a personal favorite). Their generic plot structure and frankly cardboard characters never interested me. However, I have always loved Tim Burton films. From Edward Scissor Hands to The Nightmare before Christmas, his dark yet quirky visual styles coupled with bizarre and phenomenal characters have never ceased to amaze. Alice In Wonderland is not Burton’s greatest achievement, but it was not the Disney-ravaged, 3-D effects focused disaster I predicted it to be. The film captures the more dark, mature themes and bizarre characters of the original story, creating a truly interesting, beautiful, and totally off- the-wall “Underland.” However, the film is hobbled by a loose story structure, an unfitting ending, and a lack of a semi-definite plot, leaving the film aimless.
The story follows teenage Alice Kingsley (Mia Wasikowska), the antithesis of English Victorian culture, in her return to Wonderland (which is actually called “Underland”). After spurning the marriage proposal of a stuck-up lord and falling once more down the rabbit hole, Alice is back. In her adventure to defeat the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter), she meets the classic cadre of bizarre characters: the grinning Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry), the twins Tweedledee and Tweedledum (Matt Lucas), Absolem the hookah smoking caterpillar (Alan Rickman), and of course The Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp).
For me, the film’s strongest facets were the characters as well as Underland. Every aspect was Burton-esque — unique and wonky as ever. Every creature or pseudo-humanoid in Underland is its own unique creation with their own quirks, speech inflections, and groundless motivations. All the characters, with the exception of The Mad Hatter, Alice, and the White Queen (Anna Hathaway), are somewhat or entirely animated, and may I say incredibly well done. The characters do not have a society, or rules, or frankly anything. They simply exist, which to me was a charming choice. The world itself is similar to that of The Nightmare Before Christmas, a beautiful yet dark and somewhat scary place, filled with danger as well as astonishing beauty.
As for the performances, Wasikowska did a solid job of portraying the strong-willed teenage Alice, but I felt she was sometimes a bit too one note (the constant repetition of her refusal to slay the Jabberwocky gets tiresome). Depp’s Mad Hatter was one of the film’s greatest highlights, managing to create a more complex, darker version of the character than I initially thought. His off-hand quips, switching of accents and bizarre queries did indeed create a truly “Mad” Hatter. My one gripe is that once he switched to what I believe was his “I’m Intense” Scottish accent, I had almost no idea what he was saying. I had to force myself to try and catch every single word in his guttural declarations.
The film’s plot, however, is paper thin. You literally find out how it ends within the first 15 minutes of the movie (she‘s told by a scroll of Absolem‘s that predicts her triumph over the Jabberwocky). You think that by the end she will make some decision and change her fate somehow, but no. She does exactly what we were told in the very beginning. Though this seemed somewhat clever, it frankly, turned out to be a little disappointing. Actually, a lot disappointing. There is little to no character development or back story, except for a one minute-long flashback of the Hatter’s that really raises more questions than it answers. Though this was probably done to keep the film simple, it made it feel slightly hollow. As such, the film doesn’t really go anywhere. Alice does what she’s told to do, the Red Queen is defeated, hooray hooray. You’re never shocked, saddened, angered, relieved. The movie just…happens.
Also, the ending is the one of the most disappointing and unfitting endings of all time. Alice as an armor clad sword wielding champion? It simply doesn’t go with the rest of the movie. Alice isn’t a warrior, she clever and sly. Burton doesn’t do battle scenes. Sure, the occasional battle with the Boogeyman, but not the big, trying-to-be “epic” battle scenes that are all the rage in films these days. And the Hatter’s dance….the sheer shock of seeing it I cannot even explain. These two things combined lead to an ending that simply doesn’t fit, leaving you wondering whether or not they fired Tim Burton three fourth’s of the way through the movie and replaced him with Michael Bay.
