Two weeks ago I went to see Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland expecting something I knew I wouldn’t get, mainly a good film. Driven by my undying love for Burton’s Ed Wood and Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, I went to the theatre, put on the glasses and hoped for something not so terrible. No such luck.
Being Disney I sure wasn’t expecting a groundbreaking interpretation of Alice but at least, being Burton, I thought it wouldn’t just be a live action version of Disney’s 1951 animated classic. Wrong again.
Tim Burton’s seventh collaboration with Johnny Depp is just that, another collaboration between the two, just for the sake of it (well, for the sake of the money it generates anyway) and not much else.
Linda Woolverton’s screenplay lacks ideas, its greatest twist is making Alice 19, the rest is just a retread of, not Lewis Carroll’s book but Disney’s animated film. Everything we see we have seen before and better, sometimes by Burton himself (Charlie and the chocolate factory) sometimes by others who can actually direct an action sequence, which, as proved in 2001’s Planet of the Apes, Burton can’t do to save his life. Just the slaying of the Jabberwocky sequence was flawlessly executed seven years ago by Peter Jackson, as Eowyn slayed the Nazgul in the climax to Return of the King, without the need of 3D either.
Don’t get me wrong here, I love Tim Burton as much as any Hot-Topic-consuming-teenager, its just that I think his heart wasn’t really in this project. What was the Mad Hatter doing there at the end? A tribute to Michael Jackson? I would rather remember the “tribute” Johnny did when he played Willy Wonka, but that’s just me.
The most memorable moment in the film comes from what seems to be a projection of Tim Burton’s own feelings towards the film. As the Mad Hatter (Depp) works ecstatically on new hat creations he exclaims “I love my job!”, at that moment Alice points out to him that he is really a prisoner working as a slave and not really doing it for pleasure. The realization obviously drives him mad and fills him with rage. Maybe that’s what drove Burton into making such a soulless film in the end (besides the millions he received for it).
See it if you must. I’d rather recommend the rental of one of the dozens of better adaptations available now on dvd, just in time to cash in and ride on the Mad Hatter’s coattails.
It takes a film maker or an expert in that field to say this, but it also takes a neophyte's open mind and heart to recognize when such a critique is true.
ResponderEliminarAny way, I would see this film a countless number of times because it gives me a fantastic ride regardless of having my toxic dose inside!