Reflection: “Alice in Wonderland”

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In the March 24^th, 2010 issue of The Exponent, I decided to write a review on Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. Overall I was pretty satisfied on how it turned out in the newspaper, but comparing the final piece to the draft I sent in, I still have some work to do to improve my grammar errors (mostly commas). This reflection piece will just be an expanded version of what I wrote for the newspaper.

If you haven’t noticed, over the past few weeks Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland has been highly successful at the box office. During its first weekend, it was the biggest March opening of all time, which was held for three years by Zack Snyder’s 300. Since Alice in Wonderland was making all this money, it must be a good film, right? I didn’t really hear any feedback about the film in terms of word of mouth, so I decided to check it out for myself and see why it was doing so well financially.

For those who may not know, Alice in Wonderland is about girl from London named Alice, who is 19-years-old in this film version. After chasing and falling into a rabbit hole (again), she returns back to the magical world from her childhood adventure. From there, she reunites with her old friends like Cheshire Cat, Mad Hatter, and Dormouse. However, her visit this time around is more dreadful than before. Alice learns about the Red Queen’s reign of terror and it’s up to her to live up to her true destiny and save the magical world.

One thing I did enjoy about Alice in Wonderland was Mia Wasikowska’s performance as Alice. She has a certain charm to her that successfully elevates the mystery and discovery of what’s happening all around her in the film. One of the reasons why is because this is her first blockbuster film and she balances both her innocence and confidence throughout the film. While Mia Wasikowska does strongly resemble Alice in past adaptations, she also shares a lot of personal characteristics with the characters that stem from Lewis Carroll’s original novels. The voice cast for the supporting characters was also spectacular. Two performances worth noting were Alan Rickman as Absolem and Stephen Fry as Cheshire Cat.

However the live-action performances, besides Alice, were very mediocre at best. I was looking forward to seeing how Johnny Depp would tackle the Mad Hatter character, but I was ultimately let down. Even though he dressed like a mad person and has mad in his name, the performance for the most part was pretty sane compared to past adaptations. I see Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean more mad than the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland.

The story and the overall atmosphere in the film also felt really clumsy. I can’t help, but take note of what some bloggers have said in relation to Steven Spielberg’s Hook. The film does indeed have a lot of similarities to Steven Spielberg’s Hook, where the character returns back to magical world years later, but doesn’t remember. Unlike Hook, this film didn’t give me the opportunity to emotionally invest in the characters. Also, if someone came into this film without any prior knowledge of the original Alice in Wonderland story then they would probably be slightly confused because it heavily relies on past adaptations to fill in the blanks. I really felt disconnected from beginning to end.

Even the selling point of being in 3-D was very lackluster. I may be spoiled from watching James Cameron’s Avatar, but if this new format wants to continue to succeed, it needs to be used to further enhance the story and not as a gimmick. The reason why I believe it didn’t look as well as Avatar is because the film was film with conventional cameras, and then later converted the footage into 3-D during post-production. Even James Cameron criticized the decision by saying “It doesn’t make any sense to shoot in 2-D and convert to 3-D (source).”

Overall, I was severely disappointed in this current adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. My only theory of why it’s doing so well at the box office is because it’s the first blockbuster film that’s in 3-D since James Cameron’s Avatar and that parents are taking their children to go see it by the masses. I recommend that you just save your money and put it towards something different because you’re not going to be missing out on anything if you don’t watch this film.

Tags: Alice in Wonderland, Dan Dreher, Johnny Depp, March 2010, Mia Wasikowska, Movie Review, Northern State University, Tim Burton