Curiouser and Curiouser

Last evening I had the great pleasure in being at one of the first showings of Disney and Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland in 3D IMAX. As a child, I never really liked the 1951 Disney cartoon version. I liked the tea party (and the dormouse!) and I adored the part of the singing flowers. I always felt it was a story I should love but, I found the rest of it to be much too strange and lacking any purpose, which I am well aware is the point. I recently rewatched the film to see if my opinion would change being older and having, hopefully, a more refined palate. It didn't. I have read that some reviewers feel that Burton's plot is too thin or boring but for me it was just what I wanted. A believable enough series of events that brought some sense to the nonsense of wonderland or "underland." It is a little interesting to note that the plot was a bit similar to SYFY Channel's recent reimagining of the Alice mythology (as an unrelated side note how lame is that its no longer Sci Fi).

Anyways, being a Burton film, it goes with out saying that the production values and overall aesthetic was fabulous. Colleen Atwood's (a frequent collaborator of Burtons) costumes were really outstanding. The various transformations of Alice's gowns as she grew and sank were charming. And only the grumpiest of people would not have loved the White Queen's gown and her Court. As a fledgling milliner myself, I loved all the hats in the production and I particularly adored a chain of threads in a rainbow of colors worn across Depp's body, like bullets worn by bandits in old westerns. I think it is a wonderful detail to note that the seemingly silly red hair and green eyes Depp wears for the film is a symptom likely to have actually happened to an 18th or 19th century milliner as they worked with the highly toxic mercury to cure their felts. Details like that tend to remain unknown to audiences in general, but become special treasured secrets to those who do know.

The acting was well done as one would hope from a Burton film. Helena Bonham Carter, as always, was funny and wicked yet brought a very surprising dose of sensitivity and vulnerability to the red queen that was a very welcome surprise. Anne Hathaway, too, gave a delightful performance. Incredibly funny in the subtlest way with just a trace of madness rippling across her pristine surface. I will say that I would have liked to see more interaction between her and Bonham Carter's sisters as I think they had an excellent familial type of chemistry perfect for some witty banter and the emotional ties that binds all siblings. I don't think much needs to be said on Depp's behalf. He's one of those actors who always goes full out and either you like it or you don't. Luckily, in this I found him sweet, funny and endearing. Extra spindly Crispin Glover was creepy as ever, and I liked it. I don't know what that says about me. As for newcomer Mia Wasikowska (Va-shi-kov-ska), I think she is a very promising actress though as Alice, I was only about 83% pleased with her work. I was never convinced that she was convinced she was really playing this part in this movie, like it was all some strange dream she happened to find herself in. Having said all that, again, I must reiterate that I think she has a lot of promise and in perhaps a less "wonder-filled" project, she will bring her "muchness."

As far as the tech side goes, I felt that the blending of CGI and life action was quite well mixed together with only a very few moments that betrayed the false nature that is CGI. New York magazine's review was quite right in it's opinion of Burton's use of live actors for the main character and CGI for the supporting roles because "you can't CGI a soul." In those CGI roles, I was glad to see the talking yet judgemental flowers from the classic Disney as well as the dormouse (more swashbuckling and awake this time around) white rabbit, caterpillar, Cheshire cat, the dodo, march hare, and tweedle dee and dum. That all these characters are in the film is no great surprise but that I like them ten times as much as I did in the original, is. Especially tweedle dee and dum which is one of the parts in the cartoon I simply had to fast forward over before I was any more annoyed.

I know there will be people out there who worship at the cult that is Alice in Wonderland who will hate this film. They will miss the absolute sense of nonsense. They will despise that so many of the characters have a sense of humanity. They will abhor Burton for diverging from the original plot or lack there of within Wonderland and they will certainly revolt from the less than subtle coming of age message of finding and defining who you are and what you want to be. To those people, the only thing I really have to say is "Off with their heads!"