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Young Alice (Mia Wasikowska) observes the magic of Wonderland in Tim Burton’s rendition of “Alice in Wonderland.” |
Tim Burton’s re-imagined 3-D “Alice in Wonderland” is a crushing disappointment.
Not a terrible movie. Far from it. But a disappointment nonetheless.
Burton, the goth bad boy of fantastical cinema, treats Lewis Carroll’s classic story as a sort of digitalized Frankenstein’s monster, pieced together from parts of “The Chronicles of Narnia,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “The Golden Compass” and even his own “Beetlejuice” and “Sleepy Hollow.”
The result is a movie that sucks the awe out of awesome and drains the wonder out of Wonderland.
A necessary sense of magic and mystery is missing here, leaving Burton’s marvelous eye for computer-animated special effects to carry the narrative.
Of these, the Red Queen (played by a delightfully demented Helena Bonham Carter) rules as the film’s supreme character creation with her huge, bulbous noggin resting atop a tiny body crowned by a cute, heart-shaped coif.
Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter, however, looks like Bozo the Clown with an eye infection.
Burton, working from a promising concept by screenwriter Linda Woolverton, reimagines Alice as a 19-year-old woman (played by the pale and charismatic Mia Wasikowska).
Just as the drippy Hamish (Leo Bill) asks Alice to marry him at a highly public party, Alice spots a white rabbit (voiced by Michael Sheen) with a coat and a watch.
“I need a moment,” she says as if she’s in a Twix commercial. Off she goes, and her adventure begins. (Read more…)