Alice in Wonderland (2010) - Jabbercrocky  
| I don’t know about you, but for me, the Burton/Depp routine is getting a little tired. Every couple of years it seems, Burton recruits everybody’s favourite actor to dive and breathe new life into the role of a weird and wonderful eccentric whom we all know and love from a popular culture of long ago.
In the last decade alone, we’ve heard from Mr. Depp as Ichabod Crane, Willy Wonka, Sweeny Todd, and now, Alice’s Mad Hatter. As characters go, portrayed by Depp, they are all weird, they are all wonderful, and they are all distinct enough for me to appreciate Depp’s undeniable and perhaps unequaled skill at getting under the skin of these characters, and consequently, under mine. However, the act as a whole is starting to play-out as predictable as you might expect from a duo that has worked together for so long creating their Danny Elfman-fueled flights of fancy for the masses.
It’s not to say that Burton’s Alice doesn’t take chances. I like the set-up. This Alice is older, about to be proposed to by a rich Lord, but still more interested in following white rabbits through a garden hedgerow. The Rabbit, it turns-out, was on a mission to bring “The” Alice back to Underland (no longer “Wonderland” – perhaps under new management) in order to dethrone the Red Queen, slay the Jabberwocky, and put the White Queen back in her rightful place as leader of this once fair land.
Things are indeed dark and shabby in Underland. The Hatter is no longer content to sing Merry Un-birthday songs with his tea-swilling friends. But there at the table they remain, sometimes speaking in tongues, sometimes throwing china cups at each other. The White Queen (Anne Hathaway) poses in extreme princess fashion, sometimes for laughs, and sometimes not, while she hopes for a “champion” to come along.
The champion, as we learn early on, is Alice – now 10 years after her first and barely remembered trip down the rabbit hole. Everyone asks if she’s the “real Alice” – you know, the one from the prophecy who’s here to make it all better. All our Alice can reply with is to say that she is who she is. It’s her dream, dammit! And she can do what she wishes.
I’m sure that somewhere in here is the intended message – that girls, even while they are being forced into a corset by mum in an attempt to unite their family with uppity royalty, have the power to hallucinate scenarios where they are in control enough to literally slay dragons. Two hours later, they can emerge from a hole in the ground, decree a new brand of feminism, and turn down the snooty Lord - this time in earth-stained blue frills. Does this excite anyone?
I’ve always liked the idea of turning a familiar story on its head a bit – simply by revisiting the places we know. It’s easy to be there with her. Most of us having experienced the story at a young age can return to a land of talking flowers, and smoking caterpillars with a worldly wisdom that our hero shares. Trouble is, Burton’s film has a lot more in common with Spielberg’s Hook than it does with the dark and macabre Alice that I, and perhaps you, were expecting here. So, depending on how you feel about Hook, you can set your expectations accordingly.
A lot has already been said about the comparatively shabby “post-Avatar” 3D in use for this film. It’s true. Cameron’s cameras were doing something else entirely, while this remains a traditional 2D – 3D conversion. When this replaces Avatar on IMAX screens across the world, it will not have the same immersing effect. The colours seems muted, and the effects clunky. Of course, we’ve been recently spoiled.
What’s worth seeing here, despite the short-comings, are some quality visuals. The cat is beautiful – watching it move in and out of the ether is a treat. The Red Queen’s court provides the film with its most odd and twisted moments – mostly in the form of the use of live animals as Flintstones-like slaves about the castle. This is what the book intended, and what we’ve never really seen before in honest presentation. There are characters here you will love for their inventiveness.
You will also be guaranteed to love Depp’s reciting of Carroll’s famous poem. “What’s the Jabberwocky?” asks Alice. And when Depp lets the Hatter’s Scottish brogue roll out the tale, his green eyes (altered in size through CGI to look like mad saucers) get a little smaller, a little more orange, and all kinds of sinister. It is guaranteed give you one of those creepy movie tingles that we all know and love.
But there in lies the problem I had with this Alice in Wonderland. What Burton promises with his project choice, his track record, his visual panache, and moments like the one mentioned above, he almost always disappoints with his tendency to fall back on silliness. The headless horseman decapitates children, but the real villain in that film was – a tree? Willy Wonka turns children into grotesque shapes and sizes as a cautionary tale, but he also likes to sing and dance to modern rock. The Demon Barber of Fleet Street seems to be the only one Burton and company haven't pulled punches with in recent years. Watch how this one ends and tell me I’m wrong.
This story simply goes off the rails. The ticket said "Wonderland", yet somehow we arrive at Dullsville. The Jabberwock for one should be a thing of nightmares. Here, it’s an outcast from D-War with Christopher Lee mustering-up one line of malice. In my Wonderland, the Jabberwock doesn’t speak, it is not controlled by a lady with a big head, and its sole purpose is haunting before killing. Most importantly, in a movie, it’s treated with reverence – not paraded-around like it’s the finale from Disney’s Enchanted. Again – it’s all a matter of taste.
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