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Alice in Wonderland
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Alice in wonderland
Director: Tim Burton
Writer: Linda Woolverton
Cast:Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, Crispin Glover and Alan Rickman
***
UA
When Tim Burton’s Alice tumbles down through the rabbit hole, she is no small girl, but a 19-year-old. And this is the least of Burton’s changes to the Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. Her father is dead, she has just got a proposal for marriage, and when she does reach WonderlandM, she is expected to save the residents of the fantasy world from the evil Queen of Hearts by slaying a dragon-like creature called the Jabberwocky.
Burton has quoted to say that he never felt any emotional connect with the Alice of other movie adaptations, and hence felt the need to give the story some framework of emotional grounding and make it more a story as opposed to a series of events. Hence there is a short glance back at Alice’s childhood, an equally brief look at her present before he sends Alice on her way, first down the hole and then into a dreamscape, where she meets fantastical creatures and is to save Wonderland, or the movie calls it Underland.
The movie has the usual Burtonesque visual splendour. But then Burton now adds 3D to it, to make it quite a visual treat, but he hangs on to the despondent character of his so many other movies. So Alice is pale and ghost-like, like many of Burton’s lead female characters, the tea-party of the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) is set in a wasteland, the dishes are broken, the tea cups have sprung leaks. And though the castle looks very Disney-like (not surprising since it’s a Disney production), the drain that flows by it is filled with muck and the heads of people. But the 3D does give the movie its strongest advantages, filling the screen besides the despondency, with a range of fantastical creatures like the Cheshire cat, the smoking and wise caterpillar (Alan Rickman), the rabbit, etc.
There of course certain quirky Burtensque elements that stand out, like the Queen of Hearts interrogation scene of the frogs when she learns that someone has stolen her cake, or how she says she likes resting her feet on the porker’s belly because of its warmth.
Depp does well in what little he has, because eventually Alice is the lead, and there are other important characters too. The most interesting character without doubt is the large headed and loud Queen of Hearts (Bonham Carter). Not only the way she has been conceptualized, with her ‘bulbous’ head and tiny body, lollipop-heart shaped hairdo and the heart reproduced in a horrid little lipstick pout. Whenever, she says, “off with their heads”, not only does she rock the palace but also the movie.
Apart from the 3D, a few memorable scenes and some good performances, there is not much to call it a great film. It is certainly not Burton’s best, but is still interesting to warrant a visit to the cinemas.
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