| 'ALICE IN WONDERLAND' - review |
| Written by Sian Rafferty |
| Monday, 05 April 2010 11:22 |
 Sometimes the cynic in me thinks Tim Burton has finally managed to accomplish the impossible: making quirky and original seem entirely predictable. Yes, I hear you all roar - ‘Edward Scissorhands’, ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’, ‘Big Fish’, and my personal favourite: ‘Sleepy Hollow’. Yet recently, the man seems to be losing steam. ‘Sweeney Todd’ just barely managed to restore the shenanigans which was ‘Charlie And The Chocolate Factory'. So when it was announced that Burton would be bringing Lewis Carroll’s greatest work to life, I am sad to say I didn’t feel any flutters of excitement in my belly. All I could manage was an indifferent: “Of course, who else.” Sometimes it’s good to know your gut instinct can be wrong, as Burton’s ‘ALICE IN WONDERLAND’ leaps onto stage in a form which can be described as nothing less than dizzyingly dazzling (as opposed to dazzlingly dizzy... like ‘Lost’). Burton’s first stroke of brilliance was to set his film years after Alice’s original venture into Wonderland making it all the more easier for adults to pay attention to. Here Alice - threatened with marriage to a man who mildly resembles a ruffled rooster, and a stuffy life in an uptight world - runs away to a land she has been dreaming of since childhood. However once there, she finds a world broken apart by the tyranny of the Red Queen. It’s up to her to step up to the mantel and find the guts to become the champion the people so need.  I have to say, despite some criticism surrounding her performance as Alice, I kind of liked Mia Wasikowska in the role. Alice is one of those iconic characters like Little Red Riding Hood or Snow White which look good on a flat piece of paper, but are really hard to build tangible characters from. I think Wasikowska did well in making the character her own. She could be criticised as being stunted, and her performance is quite hesitant, but then that’s just part of the character: a girl struggling with sudden responsibility which seems entirely irrational to believe in, and fighting the realistic urge to give herself a good pinch and yell: "Wake Up!".  I love Johnny Depp as much as the next red-blooded female, but recently I have been associating him heavily with what I hate to describe as Burton’s lull period. He’s a super actor, but just how many quirky, comical and slightly camp characters can one man play? Again - I was incredibly happy being proved wrong. Depp, was in full cuckoo mode as the Mad Hatter, but given a more central role, he managed to bring a depth and darkness to the loopy character. He managed to make the Hatter into a pivotal figure in the fall of the White Queen’s regime and a nice addition to the story. Equally awesome was Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen. In the trailer I originally saw her as an O.T.T., little red ant which keeps angrily biting your leg, but isn’t a real bother. No, this woman is a big black widow spider you don’t want to cross. The casting of the supporting characters was mind-blowingly on key. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum? Who else but the perpetual bald baby himself, ‘Little Britain’s’ Matt Lucas. And the dulcet tones of a hookah smoking caterpillar could go to no one else but highbrowed and hook-nosed Alan Rickman! Toss Stephen Fry and Christopher Lee into the mix - could young Alice be in any higher company? Spare a moment for poor Anne Hathaway though. Although she was pretty original and sparky in the recent ‘Valentine’s Day’, her role as the White Queen was just befuddling. She swashes around all airy-fairy and you just can’t comprehend how this woman knows what day it is let alone strives to rule a kingdom.  The piece de resistance however would really have to be just how incredible this movie is to look at. The level of fine detail which has gone into this work is incredible. From the Mad Hatter’s tea party to the Red Queen’s heart shaped palace, everything appears as it has leapt from Carroll’s pages yet has been essentially infused with Burton’s dark touch. The only bone to pick would be with the sudden bandwagon jump to 3D which everyone seems to be fussing about. To me, 3D just decreases my ability to detach from the fact that I am sitting with 100 other people in a room all looking at a screen in complete silence, and distracts me from being able to completely submerse myself in a story. I need to readjust my glasses, take them off to give my eyes a rest, squint as any fast moving detail becomes a blur across the screen. It just seems a little contradictory that the thing which is supposed to make what we see more real, totally detracts from the whole experience. Hopefully it’s just a fad. I don’t think there has ever been a movie which has so thoroughly crushed all my preconceived ideas. And I am ecstatically happy about this fact. Yes ‘Alice in Wonderland’ truly is all the best things about Tim Burton wrapped in a neat little box labelled: “Watch Me".  |
