Alice in Wonderland Review

I saw Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland over the weekend. In one word: Languorous. Tim Burton stuffs some of the original Disney movie characters into the first Wonderland scene of the film, as if to get it over with so Alice could move on to an even stranger story; except for the blue Caterpillar, with a disappointing and anticlimactic performance from Alan Rickman, who also appears toward the end of the movie to attempt to make sense of the mess, also known as the entire script; but failing, in his smoky wisdom, to explain some of the movie’s odd basics, like why some characters refer to the magical place as Underland, and others to it as Wonderland.

The scenes felt rushed, trying to press a different story from all things Wonderland that have come before; awkwardly tumbling the plot down additional side rabbit holes of no return, instead of allowing the dream-like qualities of the book to float the audience through the strange and beloved world of Lewis Carroll. The special effects were mediocre and quite frankly awkward, sprinkled with some picturesque visuals. Anne Hathaway’s performance as the White Queen was obnoxiously similar to Amy Adams’ performance in Enchanted. The odd plot of the movie that involved a Jabberwokey, was ruined in the first 30 minutes of the film by the scroll the Caterpillar possessed, then awkwardly handled throughout the other 79 minutes. And so much time was wasted on the characters wondering if Alice was the “real Alice”. My favorite character was the Cheshire Cat, definitely stealing the show as his elusive and playful self, and to me upstaging the Mad Hatter.

The ending was awkward, time warping the late 19th Century Victorian Alice suddenly into the 21st Century through some wormhole where it is normal for a 19-year-old to assume the role of her dead father in his trade business, and leave alone on the very first voyage to China with her family smiling on at her new found independence. Um, historical fact check: women of the Victorian age were not given freedom to choose the course of their life; they had no choice but to accept whatever was placed before them, which for Alice would have most definitely been her arranged marriage, instead of becoming her “almost” future father-in-law’s business partner, which seemed like an antidotal double shot of girl power, instead of portraying Alice in a more strong modern sense all along, maybe even setting the entire movie in the 21st Century…because not wearing a corset to a Victorian backyard BBQ didn’t quite cut it.

In the end not even 3D IMAX could make up for the blasé script and lack of memorable characters. Not to mention the card soldiers being odd metal robots, kind of a cross between Iron Man and the Flying Monkeys from the Wizard of Oz. Some might argue I’ve lost my childhood imagination, but maybe Jordan Commons should have set up a Hookah bar outside the theater to help us all catch Tim Burton’s vision. In the end, like a bad dream, I just wanted it all to go away.