Which Dreamed It?

Hello there Alice. After a year or so of eager anticipation Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland arrived with the expected fanfare and everyone has been of course talking about it. Critics have complained about it being an okay film if not mind-blowing. I myself am honestly a little tired of Depp playing so many weird characters. That man needs to do something else that doesn't involve period dressing or eccentric dressing, period. But then I'm a Depp fan and I don't want to have to eat my words and complain about the dearth of Depp-in-kooky-films later either.

When my sister asked me which my favourite character was, I sighed and said the Mad Hatter won by default (see paragraph above) but on more consideration, I definitely liked the Cheshire Cat, which incidentally shared my liking for the Hatter's hat and Ann Hathaway's White Queen. That woman is amazingly funny and I only wished there had been more scenes involving her.

Having gotten the fangirl rant bit out of the way, I want to go on to defend this film (in all its scripterly mediocrity). First of all, it's the first really successful Alice screen adaptation. Of course, that could just have been the audience moving on since the first botched attempt by Disney and other lesser entities and you'll have to admit that there has been a significant increase in dragons, trolls, elves, knights, wizards (and certain vampires) etc lately. Still, this doesn't detract from the film getting a number of things right and that's what counts. You can make a perfect flash in the pan like Twilight and then you can make something like Alice.

The plot suffers of course and I find the good-triumphs-evil dichotomy problematic, especially since both Queens are treated sympathetically and one ends up feeling sorry for the Red Queen (not that she wants your pity - Off with your head!). On the other hand, it does capture the spirit of the original books pretty well. The film keeps a sense of wonder going strong, though haunting may be the better word for it, as Wonderland seems to have experienced rather a bit of wear and tear since Alice first fell down the rabbithole. The castles (both white and red) were fantastic to look at, and Burton obviously had a very good look at the sources of Alice images because certain of the scenes looked almost true to how Tenniel imagined them - that is, before Burton adds his whimisical and sometimes cheeky interpretation to them. I am thinking of the 'Drink Me' scene with all the extra doors. I don't think they were there in the original book... And my personal favourite - the cherry tinted sunnies on the Red Queen's nose as she plays croquet is a clever addition to the scene.

Still, a word of warning: don't go looking for Carroll's Alice in Burton's updated adaptation. You'll be sorely disappointed and while I find myself enjoying the movie, it's hardly a substitute for the novels. (Beware lazy lit student who thinks watching the film is as good as reading the book) This is good. It's about time somebody considered re-inventing Alice rather than try to slavishly copy it or worse still, water it down till the punch it ought to have made has absolutely no impact...

Rating: 4/5