Thank goodness for 3D graphics because they were just about the only thing that saved Tim Burton’s 2010 take on Alice in Wonderland. Perhaps established actors Johnny Depp (the Mad Hatter), Helena Bonham Carter (the Red Queen), Anne Hathaway (the White Queen) and Burton’s reputation as a director are the reason this film had so much hype and publicity. With strange sexual undertones, unexplained circumstances, and frightening looking creatures, I would not suggest taking the kids. As an fan of the old Disney movie Alice in Wonderland, my longing for childhood nostalgia was crushed with this slow and anticlimactic storyline.
From the first scene we see young Alice as a girl who suffers from bad dreams often and then we abruptly fast forward to her life as a 19-year-old rebellious girl on the way to her engagement proposal. As an audience we are not quite sure what occurred in those passing years but we are to assume that Alice once visited what she calls “Wonderland” and has now forgotten all about it.
The beginning of the film sets up for what seems like might be a nineteenth century film about arranged marriages. Alice, who has about a 2.5 second attention span, fails to pay attention to the fact that she has just been proposed to and instead chases a rabbit that, surprise, goes down a rabbit hole. Following the rabbit she enters what is called “Wonderland” or what looks like a place drug addicts might go after their first hit. This is a land where you can drink a potion to make you smaller, eat a small cake that magically makes you grow taller, animals can speak, and humans take on strangely enlarged facial features.
Alice encounters a number of creatures that she befriends who are convinced that she is not the same Alice that visited this land once before. She meets the wise caterpillar who smokes out of a hookah until he cocoons, a magical healing cat, and the most intriguing character, the Mad Hatter who looks like a clown on methamphetamine. A quirky, hat-making, Mad Hatter played by Johnny Depp takes on the role of Alice’s “watcher,” yet it seems as though the two may have a connection deeper than friendship, perhaps a romance.
Alice also has an interaction with the King where he expresses his lust for her by pushing her up against a wall. Throughout the entire movie she is constantly consuming potions that alter her size and her clothing disappears as she grows taller or smaller. Her lack of clothing and risqué attire distract audiences from the once innocently portrayed Disney Alice and turns her into a bit of a sex symbol. She is even charged for unlawful seduction and brought before the Red Queen who delivers her famous line “Off with her head!” Explaining the reason for Alice’s beheading may not be inappropriate for the young ones since the PG rating allows anyone to view the film.
Alice in Wonderland is drawn out over an hour and forty minutes of film that attempts to keep audiences suspenseful for a climactic ending in which Alice must slay a large evil creature. However the ending is the opposite. It is quite slow and Alice eventually returns from Stonerland, crawling out of the rabbit hole and arriving at her engagement proposal party. The amount of time that has elapsed is unexplained and viewers are unsure what the party guests have been doing all this time that Alice has been missing. Despite all of her adventures, Alice’s character does not go through much of a transformation. In fact, she seems to be the same Alice that the film opened with. Was she dreaming, did she really go to Wonderland, or did she do some serious drugs?
Rating:
* Not a great film
** Somewhat entertaining
*** It was good, but I wouldn’t see again.
**** Mind stimulating and entertaining throughout
***** Film genius
My rating:
** 1/2
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