Alice in Tim Burton Land - movie review

(Written March 21, 2010)


This movie would have worked better for me with a different title, such as "Alice Returns", "Alice in Underland" or "Tim Burton's Alice". Then my expectations might not have been dashed as much as they were. I went in, (as I usually do), having avoided reading reviews or articles about the movie beforehand, so as not to spoil my appreciation of the movie. Therefore, I was in blissful ignorance of the fact that this was supposed to be a "sequel" and that the plot had been completely re-written. I soon caught on. Don't get me wrong - I love the movie genre and appreciate its art, and the fact that adaptations of novels often have to depart from the original in many ways. Parts of a plot often have to be cut for the sake of length, characters often have to be dismissed or toned down, new twists or new elements sometimes have to be added, sometimes to great effect. I usually appreciate the evolution of a story, from book to screen play to movie. But I guess with Alice, I'm more of a purist than I realized. 


You see, I read "Alice in Wonderland" and "Alice through the Looking Glass" too many times for me to count, as a young girl. At a guess, I'd say I read each novel about 3 or 4 times per year, from the age of 7 up to about the age of 12. (And I later returned to it, as a young adult student during my literature degree course at college). So, with an estimated 20+ readings of both novels, I've been a life-long dedicated Alice nerd. (I also memorized parts of the wonderful nonsense Jaberwocky poem). Infact, a party trick I used to perform was this: a guest of my Mum's would pick up either novel, open the book at random, and read a sentence from it. I would be able to name the chapter that sentence came from and the page number of the book.

Having quickly realized this was a whole different "Alice" story, I remained open minded and curious, to see what it would entail. I was also psyched to be experiencing it in IMAX 3D. The opening scenes were very promising - I could really appreciate the idea of Alice being forced into a nightmarish Victorian arranged marriage, escaping from it, and asserting her free will, as a new post-modern, feminist Alice. But, the moment she fell down the rabbit hole, hurtling down it at break-neck speed, (presumably to give the audience their first 3D thrill-ride), instead of floating slowly down and beginning her monologue of random rational musings, my disappointment began. Although a fan of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp (and all the actors in this film for that matter), and although this was an undeniably entertaining film, with all its 3D, CGI glory, I was disappointed with what they did to "Wonderland" (or "Underland" as they called it). 

I was hoping that Tim Burton would have at least tried to tackle a true adaptation of either one of Lewis Carroll's whimsical original novels, either Wonderland, or Looking Glass, but this was a complete bastardization of both, with the Jaberwocky thrown in, creating a Hollywood clichee, a pseudo-epic "good versus evil" battle scene, ala Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. The movie offered moments, tiny glimpses of the whimsical flavor of the original novels, (such as the beginning of the tea-party scene) but snatched them away again, overshadowing them with the more bombastic, earnest scenes of melodrama, battle and seriousness. It was clearly intended to be a joy-ride thriller with a lot of stunning visuals, incredible sets and costumes, but with none of the subtlety and sophistication of Lewis Carroll's original story. His original characters were wonderful satirical parodies of authority figures - his prose was full of witty, rational musings and jokes about emotion, earnestness and pompousness. The original Alice's only "quest" was to try to find logic in the nonsensical bizarreness and randomness of "Wonderland" or "Looking Glass land" that she found herself in. The "moral" of the original story was really: "try not to take yourself too seriously". In this new movie, Alice has been transformed into a reluctant Disney heroine, fulfilling the noble destiny of an ancient scroll at the moment of an apocalypse. The "moral" here is the same old Hollywood theme about "following your dreams", and "fulfilling your destiny", which is nice of course, but it's trying to do it while wearing the wrong clothes. "Alice in Wonderland" just doesn't fit this movie.

A review by Toria Burrell, 3/21/10