Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland

[Kuzeh]

Wow!!...
Looks very different, interesting, yet bizarre!!
Gotta check it out for sure!

 

[Cap'n Cook]

Looks pretty OK so far. Much better than the first trailer, although it shows a little too much.

 

[Ultimate Weapon]

Here is the thing. Burton has become too Burton even for his own tastes. He has a gothic style that even he himself has had to overdo to appease those who follow his stylings. Charlie and Chocolate Factory was a great example of him being "Too Burton" for his own good where it seemed absolutely forced. This feels the same way except instead of having a darker, more adult take on the story, its Burton Light done for the Mouse to be able to merchandise the hell out of.

I really like Johnny Depp, I wasn't impressed by his Mad Hatter. The movie looks like it'll be a great film over all visually but I don't have many high hopes in terms of the film's overall quality. I smell another Planet of the Apes or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where people talk about how great it looks but how the movie itself wasn't anything to scream about.

I don't think I could have summarized my thoughts on the trailer and the look of the film any better than you've stated here.

Burton has almost become a caricature of himself in a lot of his more recent works. I would argue that he has often been more style than substance, even since his earliest films, and I've never really considered his "gothic vision" to be all that dark at all. It's always an idealized "cutesy" gothic, like the guy who wants to be dark, creepy and artsy, but just isn't.

Am I not all that familiar with the story or was the Mad Hatter really the central character he appears to be in this interpretation?

 

[The Ween]

Yeah, when I saw the photo of the Mad Hatter when it was first released, I thought it was Elijah Wood.

I think Depp looks like his girlfriend Vanessa

 

[Agent0028]

Hmm, so this almost seems to be a sequel to Alice in Wonderland. That's interesting.

 

[hairlesswookiee]

cool trailer!! Anne Hathaway is so dreamy. I want to do some naughty things to her.

 

[Darklord Dave]

The 3D trailer on Avatar looked very visually interesting. But I'd agree that I'd expect very little character or story here.

 

[Agent0028]

Alice in Wonderland never really struck me as a story requiring character or story. It's essentially nonsense and ridiculousness strung together. But this movie has inspired me to bump the Alice books up higher on my to be read list so I can find out for certain what the books are like.

 

[BadMoon]

The 3D trailer on Avatar looked very visually interesting. But I'd agree that I'd expect very little character or story here.

I honestly expect more character from Burton than ANY character in AVATAR. Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha! That's a lot of hahahaha's but true.

 

[agen_kolar]

Alice in Wonderland never really struck me as a story requiring character or story. It's essentially nonsense and ridiculousness strung together. But this movie has inspired me to bump the Alice books up higher on my to be read list so I can find out for certain what the books are like.

I agree, but really, what is character development? I think it's not necessary in all instances. Everyone knows the story of Alice in Wonderland, so there's no need.

 

[agen_kolar]

Some new clips (embedding disabled):

Stolen Tarts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3YmUx1rM8M

Potion Making:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2F8xx6zR6E

Tea Party:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBmLViALjhk

Clothe this girl:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqjST_tjNag

 

[Kuzeh]

Looking good!!
!!

 

[-Super Hans-]

The controversy over Disney's decision to cut short the theatrical run of Alice in Wonderland has come to a head. If you need me to rewind, here you go: A couple weeks ago, Disney announced that Alice would only be in theaters a grand total of 13 weeks. Why the short run? DVD and Blu-ray money. And though discs usually come out four months after the theatrical release date, anyway, films can stay in theaters for quite a bit longer, which makes exhibitors smile. This isn't.

So far, US theater owners haven't said much about it, but if it becomes commonplace, you're sure to see more headlines. The dust-up is coming from the UK, where Odeon cinemas has flipped Disney the bird, refusing to release Alice in its locations in the UK, Ireland, and Italy. The BBC reports that Odeon fears the short theatrical run will "set a new benchmark, leading to a 12-week window becoming rapidly standard." And you know, I can't even begin to see another side of the argument.

Stick it to the man odeon

 

[IrishJedi]

Saw this last night. God, what a mess.

Tim Burton is a hit-or-miss director now. His films are either solid, or they leave you shaking your head and/or laughing for the wrong reasons. I'm sad to report that this one is in the latter category (for me, anyway).

Also, Mad Hatter is probably Depp's worst performance in recent memory. That surprised me most of all.

 

[agen_kolar]

Saw this last night. God, what a mess.

Tim Burton is a hit-or-miss director now. His films are either solid, or they leave you shaking your head and/or laughing for the wrong reasons. I'm sad to report that this one is in the latter category (for me, anyway).

Also, Mad Hatter is probably Depp's worst performance in recent memory. That surprised me most of all.

Sad day.

 

[IrishJedi]

Hey, it's just one man's opinion. Don't let it affect your own. You still may like it!

 

[agen_kolar]

Hey, it's just one man's opinion. Don't let it affect your own. You still may like it!

I may! Was there anything in particular that bothered you?

 

[IrishJedi]

I may! Was there anything in particular that bothered you?

Well, if you're familiar with the characters from the original books/films, they're played much differently here... so much so that it really doesn't feel like AIW and does a disservice to the source material and its fans, imho. It was *too* Burtonized.

Devin from CHUD shares a lot of the same thoughts I have on the film, though he's a bit more rough on it than I'd be: https://chud.com/articles/articles/22779/1/REVIEW-ALICE-IN-WONDERLAND/Page1.html

REVIEW: ALICE IN WONDERLAND

Every generation gets their Hook.

Actually, that's a little bit of a facetious comparison. While Alice in Wonderland, like Hook, is a misguided and expensive sequel to a beloved children's story, at least Steven Spielberg understood what it was that made Peter Pan tick. Watching Alice in Wonderland one can't help but realize that the work of Lewis Carroll holds no place in the heart of Tim Burton, and that he probably doesn't get any of it beyond the most superficial surface level.

Like Hook, Alice in Wonderland sees an older version of a classic character returning to old haunts and meeting up with old friends. For some reason the Alice in Wonderland script, by Linda Woolverton, keeps Alice utterly in the dark for the entire film. We know that she's been to Wonderland before, the other characters know it, but bafflingly she doesn't. And when she does remember, right at the end, it's presented as some kind of big reveal. Huh? What makes it all the weirder is that the movie doesn't always feel like a sequel to Lewis Carroll's original work but some kind of weird echo, or a reboot. Characters drop famous audience identification lines from the original books, and they engage in activities that we recognize from previous adaptations, but these lines and these activities don't seem to have a place here; they're the Alice equivalent of a franchise throwing insipid fan service in the sixth film - a wink at the people who have been here all along.

But what's the point of Alice not remembering anything? It's just frustrating to spend the whole film so far ahead of your heroine; even if Alice had remembered everything from her childhood but thought she was dreaming throughout this current adventure it would have been more satisfying.

Well, sort of more satisfying. There's little satisfying here, especially for anyone who has appreciated the work of Lewis Carroll. For some reason Woolverton and Burton have opted to try and shoehorn Alice into the heroic fantasy mold, which is just completely wrong for the character. Lewis Carroll's two Alice books are episodic, strange and generally light; the writer played with words and logic, making games of language and thought. What he didn't do was throw Alice into sweeping battles or have her play a role in the fates of kingdoms, and putting Alice and these characters into those scenarios utterly distorts and ruins them; why anyone ever needed to see the Mad Hatter have a ____ing sword fight is beyond me. Everything in this movie is utterly wrong, coming from the point of view of someone who is even modestly aware of Lewis Carroll's work. The script has left all the whimsy out and replaced it with strange solemnity, and it has dropped all the surreality and replaced it with packaged weirdness.

But even if you're going to accept the idea that this movie utterly misses everything that makes Lewis Carroll's books special, it still sucks. Tim Burton seems unable to tell a story with any kind of narrative focus. The movie just wanders in and out of set designs, playing like a giant adaptation not of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland but rather The Art of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. Sluggish and plodding, utterly without wit or any flair or spark of life, the film slowly wears you down.

Part of what wears you down is the pestilent design. Burton's Wonderland is a burnt out husk of unpleasantness; gone is the woodcarving precision of the original books and the lush colors of the cartoon; in their place are diseased purples and festering browns. Everything is disgusting to look at, a fairy tale dystopia. That extends to many of the character designs, which render Carroll's characters into horrific meatbeasts. Most of the film looks like it takes place in Mordor, which is appropriate since the last third explicitly rips off Lord of the Rings again and again (one of the few non-Mordor locations is the White Queen's castle, which apparently overlooks a photo of Rivendell). Just try to watch Alice battle the Jabberwocky (I know, I know, but this is the movie they've made) and not see a battle against the fell beasts of the Nazgul on the steps of Minas Tirith. I dare you.

Mia Wasikowska is lovely looking as a 20 year old Alice facing an adult life; sadly she's often utterly boring in a truly tedious hero's journey role. Helena Bonham Carter is irritating as the Queen of Hearts (incorrectly called the Red Queen), but at least she seems to be having fun. Other actors deliver generic voice over work, and Anne Hathaway looks amazing with white hair but is wretched as the White Queen.

The true stand out miserable performance comes from Johnny Depp, who has been the focus of all the film's advertising and will be the reason this piece of crap makes any money. The Mad Hatter is without a doubt Depp's worst role since... well maybe in his entire career. A formless mess of a performance, the Mad Hatter simply allows Depp to give in to all his worst instincts. When the Hatter is mad he's a Scotsman, when he's not he's a lisping prat... except when he's not a lisping prat. The character himself exists merely as a function of the plot - if you thought that Through the Looking Glass really needed an Obi Wan Kenobi character, you're in luck - so Depp gets to slide around within him without rhyme or reason. Weirdly the film gives the Mad Hatter an origin story (I ____ you not), but even that doesn't do much to define this mangled version of the eternal tea partier. Still, now I can say that I've lived long enough to watch a movie where the Mad Hatter is a dedicated freedom fighter.

Even the vaunted 3D in the film is useless. Burton didn't shoot stereoscopic, and I'm assuming he never imagined it would be converted after the fact, as he uses almost no depth at all in the picture. I forgot the movie was in 3D, and I don't mean it in that 'it was so immersive I was just in it,' I mean it in 'the movie's so flat there's no reason to shell out extra bucks for a 3D presentation.' There are a handful of shots where Burton plays with depth of field, but they feel like an afterthought.

One thing I will give the film is that the CGI is terrific. The movie mixes live action with CG almost seamlessly, and the few live action actors have been monkeyed about with in post production. There's a weight to many of the digital characters, and parts of the film feel animatronic or puppeteered, which I intend as a major compliment. Still, a bunch of strong effects doesn't stop the rest of the movie from being a heaping pile of garbage.

I had heard early reports that Alice in Wonderland was unwatchably bad, an unmitigated disaster. It's not - it's just regular terrible. Sloppy and stupid and filled with an endless string of wrongheaded decisions, the movie's a mess and deserves to fail, but it never rises to that exquisite level of true horror. It's a bore, an affront to anyone who is even familiar with the concept of Lewis Carroll and his books, but in the end it's banal. And I mean that - totally banal in the end, with Alice using her experiences in Wonderland to become a ____ing businesswoman. The ending of the movie plays like Tim Burton making peace with the fact that he's no longer an artist, he's now a content provider for Hot Topic.

4 out of 10

 

[CelticPredator]

The first sentence really let me know that I couldnt give a ____ about his review. Hook is awesome.

 

[IrishJedi]

HOOK isn't a trainwreck and has its moments, but I can't see how anyone would think it's "awesome" (aside from John Williams' score, which is one of his best).