- I didn’t realise going into this that this was not a strict remake of the earlier Disney version, which I actually didn’t have a problem with. What I did have a problem with was that the plot was paper thin and deathly boring. They try to liven things up with a chase scene and a pseudo-dragon slaying, but the path to get through these points is dead boring and those points themselves aren’t even that engaging either.
- I think I just don’t like Lewis Carroll (or perhaps Victorian fantasy) very much. It’s for much the same reason that I am not a fan of Salvador Dali: I’m not into juxtaposing completely random things and calling it surrealism. Look how wacky we can get! No. The unnerving quality of surrealism for me has always lied in the juxtaposition of things that feel familiar and comfortable in some way and yet conceptually they’re at odds with one another, the Miss Clavel “Something is not right!” moment. Melting clocks and flamingo golf clubs don’t do it for me.
It should be obvious at this point that Rene Magritte is my favourite painter.
- I enjoyed the Red Queen’s army of cards, especially their armour. I liked the part during the final battle where they fell down like dominoes before collapsing a house of cards that dropped a rock into a catapult.
- I just need to point out this alarming comparison of Madonna and the Mad Hatter that I found a couple of weeks ago.
- I’m officially bored of the Johnny Depp / Tim Burton collaboration. They need to take some time apart, Scorsese/De Niro style. It’s like Ocean’s 13: I get that you’re friends and you enjoy making movies together, but that doesn’t mean you can just get by on the goodwill you’ve accumulated from your previous outings.
- I liked Anne Hathaway’s queenly, fairy tale gestures and the undertone of crazy that suggested she was just as unbalanced as her sister, just better at hiding it.
- I. Hate. Talking. Animals. (When. They. Are. Not. Cartoons.)
- Way too much eye stabbing in this. Dormouse, get another skill. Euch.
- Alan Rickman needs to stop doing his bored Snape voice all the goddamned time.
- I’m clearly missing why the Mad Hatter needed to be occasionally Scottish, aside from the aforementioned “random shit is wacky!” reason as well as the fact that in another context, Scottish Johnny Depp would be a deeply attractive role.
- I liked Stayne’s facial scar and his eyepatches.
- After Remember Me and now this, there seems to be a burgeoning trend of movies that are bland and inoffensive completely destroying themselves in the last five minutes. The turning point of failure in Alice was quite clearly the moment where the Mad Hatter started dancing the dance he had been
threateningpromising to do since the start of the movie. WOW. Wow. Just wow. This part was clearly meant for any six year-olds in the audience because I can’t imagine anyone else finding this remotely amusing. Wow. - I think Tim Burton will forever be stuck making movies for twelve year-old goths and the depressing part is that this will be entirely of his own free will. How do you go from fabulous lampoons of goth teenagers like we get in Beetle Juice to making films lacking any sense of irony aimed at this exact demographic?
- Speaking of which, you’d be better off renting Beetle Juice instead of wasting your 3D funds on this. Love that movie.
Alice in Wonderland
Wonderbland, more like.
IMDB Plot Synopsis 19-year-old Alice returns to the magical world from her childhood adventure, where she reunites with her old friends and learns of her true destiny: to end the Red Queen's reign of terror.
I’m so glad I’m not the only one who disliked this movie. Everyone else I’ve spoken to has thought it was the best thing ever but I found it to be painfully boring.
And yes, Johnny Depp plus that Scottish accent in another role would be lovely but in this it just felt out of place.
This is probably reading WAY TOO DEEPLY and was probably not at all intentioned on either Depp or Burton’s part but…
*takes a deep breath*
…in ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND she encounters the Mad Hatter and the March Hare. In THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS, she encounters two people named Hatta and Haigha (which would be pronounced by Brits as “Hatter” and “Hare”), who are the WONDERLAND characters although Alice does not recognize them as such for they do not seem mad.
Now, I think Haigha is a made-up Scottish last name created by Carroll, thereby implying that Hatta and Haigha are Scottish-ish (even though they are disguised as Anglo-Saxon messengers the text). I noticed the Scottish accent comes out when the Hatter is not insane, implying that 1) his “real” voice is Scottish and 2) the “mad” act is just that, an act.
HOWEVER, I highly doubt Burton/Depp would have drawn this connection (with the Scottish thing). If they did, it’s official: Tim Burton lives in my head.
P.S. No, I’m not a scholar of Lewis Carroll–just ridiculously dorky and obsessed with the books as a child. I really wish Burton would have just gone for a “straight” but dark portrayal of the nonsensical happenings in the book; in many ways I think it would have made more sense.
P.P.S. Long time lurker, first time poster, and look, it’s THE LONGEST COMMENT EVER
I actually loved this movie. Maybe I’ve just gotten really obsessed with everything Tim Burton does. My big thing with this movie though was the costumes. Everything Alice wore in this movie made me go O_O and ‘I’m gonna get that.” lol. And I don’t notice costumes too often. Most Burton movies have kickass costumes that I would totally take home with me.
I was indifferent to the acting except for the girl who played Alice. And Johnny Depp on occasion. I’m gonna go find this screenplay, I liked a lot of the dialogue.
I agree about the film’s dreadful final minutes, and I was particularly baffled by the way Alice’s adventures in Wonderland somehow enabled her to…..revolutionise the shipping industry by pointing to China and saying “Let’s go there!” What? Is that *really* the best climax you can come up with for your multi-million dollar fantasy adventure?
This is the worst film I’ve seen so far this year.
4. THIS WAS ALL I COULD SEE THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE FREAKING MOVIE! It was quite distracting.
6. I am starting to really enjoy her, she was quite good in this.
10. This was odd too, though I thought it was the best part of the movie.
What Becca said. Everyone I know LOVES this, and I… just don’t feel the need to ever watch it, again.