Hey, everyone. Capone in Chicago here.
It's right and good that folks get excited each time director Tim Burton and his male muse Johnny Depp work together, but here's the worst kept secret about their creative partnering: the more special effects, make-up, and intentional wackiness they pile on to a particular film, the less successful it is as art. I don't think I'll get too much push-back on saying that ED WOOD and EDWARD SCISSORHANDS are their best (and earliest) collaborations. And since they made those two films, they've been trying to recapture some sort of elusive, creepy magic that usually results in something entertaining but not sustained greatness. I don't have an overwhelming need to revisit CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY the way I do their initial pairings (perhaps unfairly, I'm excluding CORPSE BRIDE, which I love, from this discussion). SWEENEY TODD is probably the closest they've come to brandishing the kind of goth greatness audiences are hoping for, but ALICE IN WONDERLAND (barely based on the Lewis Carroll books) is an entirely different creature altogether, one that I both appreciate and struggled with. I'll tell you right off the bat, I'm split about as close down the middle on this film as I possibly can be. If you want to hear why, keep reading.
First and foremost, Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter character isn't even close to the most interesting thing about ALICE. If anything, I felt like the normally reliable screenwriter Linda Woolverton (who had a hand in writing such works as BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, THE LION KING, MULAN, and HOMEWARD BOUND) took a crowbar to her script, pried open her plot, and forced the Hatter into the story in as many places as she possibly could, regardless of whether him being in those scenes improved the film at all. Depp will always be interesting, and he has an uncanny gift at making us feel something about even the most devious and loopy characters he's inhabited. But I just didn't take to the Mad Hatter the way I was supposed to. Maybe I was distracted/blinded by the hair, makeup and costume choices for the character, but I never got more than a surface interest in Depp's creation.
The good news is that there are far more interesting characters to choose from, beginning with Alice (Mia Wasikowska, who broke my soul open with her performance on HBO's "In Treatment"). I like the choice to make this version of Alice a nearly 20-year-old version of the little girl who made the trip down the rabbit hole and into an insane asylum cluttered with drug addicts and sadists (that's how I always saw it). In her world, she is in the midst of being forced into a marriage with a true toad of a man who insists that any fanciful thoughts she might have should be kept internalized. What a dick. I think Alice stands in for female writers of her time, who see the world in different terms but society is squashing the creativity out of at every turn. I was quite taken with the bookends of this ALICE IN WONDERLAND, and I can't imagine every little girl with half a brain in her head wouldn't want to turn into this woman, tired of doing what others expect.
I also found myself craving more of the animals characters, voiced by a who's who of some of Britain's greatest acting talents, including Michael Sheen as the prim and proper White Rabbit, Matt Lucas as Tweedledee and Tweedledum, Alan Rickman as the Blue Caterpillar (never without his hookah pipe), Timothy Spall as the loyal bloodhound Bayard, the unmistakeable Christopher Lee as the Jabberwocky, and my favorite voice performance, Stephen Fry as the vaporous Cheshire Cat. I could have watched an entire movie just about him and been peachy.
Compared to some of the overdone human performances, the non-human characters in ALICE IN WONDERLAND are downright placid and far more interesting. The unholy pairing of the Queen of Hearts and the Knave of Hearts (Helena Bonham Carter with an enormous head, and Crispin Glover with a heart-shaped eye patch) seem to mistake yelling and overacting with being evil. Nope, it's just loud. The effect of Bonham Carter's huge noggin is phenomenal and seamless as an effect, but the character is such an underachieving villain that I got bored with her after about five minutes. You can only hear "Off with his/her head!" so many times before you realize it's an empty threat. And I'm starting to feel bad for Glover, who I'm afraid is getting cast these days just to capture the weird vibe. Trouble is, he's not required to do anything particularly weird in this movie. Faring slightly better is the underdeveloped White Queen (Anne Hathaway), whose graceful movements in public are actually just an act for her subjects; she doesn't mind getting down and dirty if she has to. I wanted to see that side of her come out a bit more; alas, this isn't her story. Hathaway is a strong enough actress (when she isn't wasting our time with films like BRIDE WARS) to breathe the necessary life into her character.
The screening of ALICE IN WONDERLAND I went to was in IMAX 3-D, which is kind of critical. I can't imagine liking the things I liked about this movie nearly as much without those elements. Sure, it's a gimmick, but it's a gimmick that kept me interested long past when I might have been seeing this in standard 2-D projection. What stuck me almost as soon as Alice arrives in Wonderland was that the landscapes were less scary versions of the Pandora landscapes (and creatures) from AVATAR. Turns out the same designer, Robert Stromberg, did both films. Great news for us, but a little strange to see both films so close together.
Being so split on characters that work and ones that don't, I turned to the story to give me guidance as to whether I should recommend ALICE IN WONDERLAND or not, but that isn't much help either. As I mentioned, the bookends about Alice the young woman in polite society is good stuff, and a lot of the material concerning her return to Wonderland is okay, but did we really need the battlefield antics (so like the Narnia films, it frightened me) to close out the show? The answer is No. It feels obvious and lazy. I wanted a more satisfying showdown between the Red and White queens; Bonham Carter and Hathaway in a sisterly cat fight should be a bit more interesting (and maybe a touch on the sexy side?). If I had a gun to my head and had to choose whether to recommend ALICE IN WONDERLAND, I'd give in to the kids in my screening, who were clearly enjoying the hell out of this movie and all its three-dimensional splendor. In the end, they will be the ones to make or break this film, and I know they'll want to see this one over and over again. Even I wouldn't mind watching it one more time just to take in some of the rich special effects and vibrant 3-D. As a visual art, the film is an unbridled surreal success; as classic storytelling with richly drawn characters and contemplative plot, eh, not so much.
-- Capone
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