Alice in Wonderland – DVD/Blu-Ray Review
- June 21st, 2010
- Posted in Movies . Reviews
- By Steve
- Write comment
TITLE: Alice in Wonderland
STARRING: Johnny Depp, Mia Wasikowska, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Crispin Glover
DIRECTOR: Tim Burton
STUDIO: Walt Disney Pictures
RATED: PG
RUN TIME: 108 min
RELEASE DATE: March 5, 2010 (Theatrical), June 1, 2010(DVD/Blu-Ray)
By Stephen McCarthy
Staff Writer, Evil Genius
What is this dark and gloomy world that is parading around as Wonderland? Where are all of the beautiful colors and creative backdrops that make your imagination run wild? This whimsy and fun is nowhere to be found in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. Instead we are treated to dull persons that bear the likeness and the names of the beloved characters, a dreary backdrop that looks ravaged by war or something that resembles most other Tim Burton movies.
The offense that I could not get past was a cohesive plot where the extraordinary and the unexpected do not happen. It is as if they took everything that makes Alice in Wonderland such an enjoyable adventure and ditched it. Why even bother with Alice in Wonderland if you are going to change everything about it? Why not just rename the characters and the land and get rid of the some of the things that make it Wonderland such as the rabbit hole, “eat me” and “drink me” bottles, and others.Why not come up with a different way to get the protagonist to the world of make believe? At the very least it would have been an original property.
While I took great issue with reimaging a work to the point where it is unrecognizable outside of the fact that we are told what it is, there are other problems as well. The familiar trio of Johnny Depp, Tim Burton and Danny Elfman once again join forces. But now it seems old and tired. Tim Burton has done much better, and this style now seems uninspired where it once felt unique and original. This seemed more like Tim Burton playing it safe with his trusty actor and musician at his side, both of whom seem to be going through the motions this outing.
Image from RottenTomatoes.com.
To accompany this is the fact that the cohesive plot was intentionally done. Tim Burton had said in an interview that the original Alice in Wonderland had felt like a series of events and lacked an emotional connection. He wanted to provide a framework and grounding and make it more like a story rather than a series of events, but there are a handful of films that feel like a series of events that have a great emotional impact. Just recently, The Road was able to accomplish this. Admittedly, the characters and events in Alice in Wonderland are far more varied, outlandish and crazy than the realistic world presented in The Road. This made The Road more coherent but it was still event hopping. By giving it a structured narrative and more of a standard story, it seems like a cop out because they could not come up with a way to drive the emotional state through the events.
The structured narrative also ended up making the world predictable. Near the end of the movie there is a battle of sides. It is supposed to be a one-on-one battle, but we can’t have that. This is a big 3D CG movie so we must have a gargantuan battle. Well before both sides faced off, you knew it would come to this. You knew it would come to this 15 minutes into the movie. It seems as though the big epic battle has become a must have now that we can just generate all of the armies whereas before we were in need of having thousands of extras. What used to be awe inspiring in Braveheart is becoming a big yawn nowadays and feels entirely unnecessary.
The movie did have its upsides, though. The trio of Depp, Burton and Elfman do work well together and it has become a bit tiresome, but a good tiresome thing is something that I would take over most of the garbage presented nowadays. I loved that huge grin on the Cheshire Cat. I thought Absolem the blue caterpillar was played off perfectly, and that Alan Rickman was the perfect choice for the role. But the other problems far outweigh these few short fleeting gems.
The DVD includes three featurettes entitled “Finding Alice,” “The Mad Hatter” and “Effecting Wonderland.”
RATING: 4/10
THANK YOU for finally saying what I’ve been saying since I heard this production was being remade!
TERRIBLE review…jesus..even people who didnt enjoy it gave it it’s proper due..i mean u actually talked negative about the beautiful COLOURS in this movie..even MAJORITY of viewers who didnt think too highly of the plot loved the eye candy..
this was basically a bashfest from start to finish..what your other motives are for this i honestly dont know..however if u DO feel what u actually wrote… then i honestly feel sorry for you..quite sad really..over a Billion made in theatres and obliterating dvd and blue ray sales says 1 thing:
THE PUBLIC HAS SPOKEN..thank you.
Metacritic Score of Alice in Wonderland (2010) – 53
Rotten Tomatoes Score of Alice – 51
While the ‘public’ and the ‘critics’ might not always agree, I believe that Steve’s—ahem—opinion, falls closely with the other reviews out there.
And besides, who wants to be part of the flock? I’m sick and tired of Tim Burton. I used to love his films, but they’ve gotten to the point where he’s practically painting by numbers. When I heard this was being remade, all I could think of was the vast mountains of cash that all the Hot Topic crowd was going to throw at this film. And apparently they’ve spoken. Along with their parents.
@travis
I couldn’t get into the eye candy because there was not much candy to be had. It looks like a slightly better version of other Tim Burton films. Even in the picture above you could replace Alice with the Headless Horseman and now you have Sleepy Hollow. Hey wait a minute. That movie also had the Trio of Burton, Depp and Elfman. I didn’t even pick out that picture, one of the editors did.
But moving on the the public has spoken…horrible indication of anything. The public cheered on the crucifixion of Jesus and the rise of Hitler. All hail Caesar and hello finical crisis/housing market. The public isn’t always wrong either which is why the public is not a good indication of what is necessarily good. Transformers 2 made nearly $850 worldwide and including the DVD/Blu-ray sales it is has also eclipsed $1 billion. That movie is absolutely abysmal and I actually liked the first one.