Alice in Wonderland (2010)
Directed by Tim Burton
Alice, now 19 years old, returns to the whimsical world she first entered as a child and embarks on a journey to discover her true destiny.
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This story, inspired by Carroll and credited to screenwriter Linda Woolverton, recalls Steven Spielberg’s contemplation of a grown-up Peter Pan in “Hook,” which seemed at least partially the director’s effort to reconcile his own youthful enthusiasms with grown-up responsibilities.
Oh, it was inspired by that book (and its sequel, "Through the Looking-Glass"), using the same characters and many similar motifs, but like Spielberg's "Hook" in relation with J.M. Barrie "Peter Pan", "Alice in Wonderland" is actually a variation on the source material more than a straight retelling of the original story.Also not unlike "Hook" is the way our protagonist, Alice ("Alice?"), is now older, has all but forgotten her famous adventures and has seemingly lost her "muchness".
It actually has quite a bit in commonwith Steven Spielberg's 1991 flop Hook.
Playing like a sequel to the infamous story of the little girl falling down the rabbit hole, this film has more in common with Steven Spielberg’s lousy Peter Pan sequel Hook than with Burton’s best films.
This “Alice” adventure is conceived as more of a sequel, treading where “Return to Oz” and “Hook” already splashed up a storm.
The basic set-up seems promising enough too, with the teenage Alice, on the cusp of womanhood, tumbling back into the weird underworld she visited as a young child but has since forgotten (shades of Hook).
It may be sacrilege to compare Burton's Alice in Wonderland with The Wizard of Oz (1939), but there are distinct parallels.
Alice's first proper glimpse of Underland comes with the opening of a door, recalling a similar scene in 1939's "The Wizard of Oz" when Dorothy steps out from the black-and-white confines of her farmhouse and into the Technicolor-fused Munchkinland.
In a plot turn reminiscent of the poorly received Return to Oz, Wonderland has gone to seed, and it’s up to Alice to rescue it by defeating the Jabberwock, a fearsome creature under the control of the villainous Red Queen (Helena Bonham-Carter).
Rather than a straight adaptation of Carroll’s stories, Woolverton has chosen to stage her story 13 years after the events in the books, which essentially makes this film a sequel of sorts; its closest cousin in this arena is another Disney-sanctioned reworking of classic children’s literature, Walter Murch’s Return to Oz (1985), an extremely dark and violent product of the Reagan era that has virtually nothing to do with Victor Fleming’s candy-colored musical.
This “Alice” adventure is conceived as more of a sequel, treading where “Return to Oz” and “Hook” already splashed up a storm.
Once there she finds it in a state of turmoil and disrepair (Return to Oz anyone?), which is the point at which Burton's Alice begins to come unstuck.
As for the 3D, it's hugely unfair for Alice to be following up Avatar-- its CGI effects and 3D depth is piddling compared to James Cameron's titanic effort.
We should thank Tim Burton for his Alice in Wonderland, for it does one thing extraordinarily well: It reminds us that James Cameron really did achieve something new and astonishing with Avatar.
Burton's "Alice" is much more concerned with visuals (like "Avatar," and you know how I feel about that), using a mix of live action and animation with most of the shooting done with the actors in front of a green screen.
Burton's bland use of 3D does little to enhance the experience as well; compared to Avatar 's eye-popping vistas and Coraline 's beautifully layered sets, Alice in Wonderland is drab and dull, two words rarely used to describe a Tim Burton movie.
The flat climax borrows architecture and action from Narnia, animals from the "The Golden Compass" and psychedelic jungle flora from the movie it's replacing in theaters, "Avatar."
Whereas James Cameron’s Avatar looked like someplace that should exist but sadly doesn’t, Burton’s Wonderland looks like a place that shouldn’t exist but happily does… right there on the screen.
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Taking for granted that his audience is as fascinated and familiar with Lewis Carroll's Alice stories as he is (both Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are referenced here), Burton throws us into his wild world with little to go on except the knowledge that teenage Alice (Mia Wasikowska), like every other children's literary hero, is no ordinary girl.
Burton has lifted ample amounts from both “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass,” but, crucially, he sets the story, for the most part, 13 years ahead of the material in the books, so that Alice ( Mia Wasikowska ), instead of being a preteen, is 19.
The film follows on from the events of both Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, filling each scene with references to the books in both the visual design and the dialog, which is witty and snappy and often wonderfully absurd.
But if you’re going to turn Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland into something akin to Dungeons and Dragons ala Dodgson, it would be nice if your narrative was as knotty and imaginative as the man behind the lens.
It was revived in 1949, when the impending release of Cinderella had rejuvenated the animation studio, and the production of Alice in Wonderland hadn't yet descended into abject misery.
Oh, it was inspired by that book (and its sequel, "Through the Looking-Glass"), using the same characters and many similar motifs, but like Spielberg's "Hook" in relation with J.M. Barrie "Peter Pan", "Alice in Wonderland" is actually a variation on the source material more than a straight retelling of the original story.Also not unlike "Hook" is the way our protagonist, Alice ("Alice?"), is now older, has all but forgotten her famous adventures and has seemingly lost her "muchness".
Indeed, Alice’s story as told here rather closely resembles the story of Wendy Darling in the original “Peter Pan,” another heroine who hoped to avoid maturation by flying into fantasy.
It seemed like he might have been back on track, visually at least, with Sweeney Todd in 2007, but then, that was a bloody movie for adults, not a corporate tentpole family picture.
The middling results are especially puzzling since, like Sondheim�s blood-splattered arias in Sweeney Todd , Lewis Carroll�s topsy-turvy dreamscapes would appear to be a perfect fit for Burton�s own phantasmagoric gifts.
The "Sweeney Todd" actress is such a force here that she could make James Cameron's more visually impressive Pandora wilt in the background.
But I never expected that to be the strongest part of the film, considering this is Tim Burton we're talking about — director of "Ed Wood," "Beetle Juice," "Edward Scissorhands," "Corpse Bride" and "Sweeney Todd," and writer/producer of "The Nightmare Before Christmas."
In fact, there has been a quality of sameness in Depp's most recent three live-action collaborations with Burton (with Sweeney Todd and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory preceding this one).
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)
Directed by Andrew Adamson
Themes Visuals Plot
Burton invokes the same themes of “The Chronicles of Narnia” where a youth who hasn’t lost touch with the magic is the only thing that stands between good and evil while also getting in touch with her warrior-like persona.
There are reminders of Edward Scissorhands , Beetlejuice , Sleepy Hollow and Sweeney Todd in the film, along with many hat tips to the fantasy tales Burton has long admired: The Wizard of Oz , The Lord of The Rings , The Chronicles of Narnia and many others.
This was Burton's chance to invent a new world and he gave us "Lord of the Rings" meets "Titanic" and "The Chronicles of Narnia," but without their depth and power.
In his hands, "Alice in Wonderland" becomes a little darker and a little closer to the Middle Kingdom and "Narnia"-style other-world sagas, in which a good queen has been supplanted by an evil one, and a chosen one that the oppressed have been awaiting may or may not have finally arrived.
? and the film builds to a CGI battle that might have come out of a lesser Narnia sequel.
This is nothing like the Lewis Carroll novels and highly derivative of the "Harry Potter" and "The Chronicles of Narnia" series', but for a few fleeting minutes the fantasy portion of the movie energizes itself and all aspects of production come together as they should have all along.
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To wit: Alice rides on the back of a furry beast—in a style reminiscent of The Neverending Story—not once, not twice, but thrice.
Once in Wonderland (whose real name is the more appropriate Underland), Alice comes across all the familiar characters, including Tweedledee and Tweedledum (both played by a heavily CGI-ed Matt Lucas), the grinning Cheshire Cate (voiced by Stephen Fry), Absalom, the hookah-smoking blue caterpillar (voiced by Alan Rickman), and, of course, the Mad Hatter, who is played by Johnny Depp in bizarre yellow contact lenses, white pancake make-up, and a fright wig of shockingly red hair (he looks like a truly nightmarish version of Faye Dunaway at her worst in Mommie Dearest).