Alice in Wonderland

V: My favorite book growing up was Alice in Wonderland. The previews looked really creepy, and the reviews mixed, but we decided to go see it anyway. Yes, it was creepy. Tim Burton is the King of Creep. But, it kinda fits in Wonderland - because it's Wonderland. Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen was pretty funny. I liked her. Anne Hathaway, as the White Queen, was also good, in a quirky, wistful way. Johnny Depp was right at home as the Mad Hatter. Crispin Glover as Stayne, the Red Knight, was uber-creepy, with his huge body and tiny head. It was a much darker Wonderland than I liked in the book, though. Nonsense for nonsense's sake has been replaced by tragedy-induced madness. And I got a hint of a nightmarish cyclical history in Wonderland. Was it just me? I guess the makers of this movie felt they had to explain things and reason some plot out of this - which is precisely not the point. Remember what the "most important piece of evidence heard yet" was? "Nothing, whatever." It's supposed to be nonsense.

Okay, the more I write the more I'm convincing myself I didn't like this - but I actually did enjoy "seeing" it. I enjoyed most of what was happening visually in Wonderland. I was liking the movie very much, actually, until Alice returned to England. Her actions there were rude and historically improbable. *Spoiler* It's fine if she doesn't want to marry someone, but rather than politely decline, she meanly tells poor Hamish that he just didn't do it for her. Then she stomps off, as the entire crowd, silenced, parts to let her grandly parade by. I really hate stuff like that in movies. It's so over-the-top. And of course then she takes her father's place in his adventuring business (which seemed quite a jump from the way things had been set up socially at the beginning of the movie.) It's great for Alice to want to be independent, and to find adventure in her life. But it was abnoxious and political grandstanding: "Look at me! I'm a woman in turn-of-the-century England and I just told this guy to shove it in front of all his family and friends! I'm so strong and liberated! And now I'm taking over my father's business and am going to boss all these wealthy old men around! Yeah, I'm 19 years old, but I'm strong and liberated!" Not likely. I see that they were trying to make Alice out to be a strong heroine, slay the jabberwocky and otherwise not follow traditional roles, blah, blah, blah... I guess what I'm trying to say is, Be strong, but don't be bratty and immature about it.

So that was a lot about what I didn't like. Again, the Wonderland visuals, and many of its characters, I liked. 3 stars

M: I was not the biggest fan of the book. I know, I know, you are thinking that I didn't understand it, or I am a fun-hater. Maybe. Watching the movie though, gave me a little better appreciation for the book. I, like V, think they missed the boat. In the book, there are no "good guys" or "bad guys," just characters. There is no winning or losing, or winners or losers, just a nonsensical adventure. In making this movie, someone must have said, "wait, we need a plot, a good team, a bad team, a battle, and a winner, that is just what we do in movies, and if we don't, how will people know who wins, how will they know they saw a movie at all?" So, like a miniature version of Lord of the Rings or the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, the movie separated the characters into teams, good and bad. Then, in the end, the teams had an epic battle, which for me, was the last straw. I didn't want a winner, I didn't want good to overcome evil, and I didn't want a re-hash of ever other movie out ever made. I wanted Alice in Wonderland, the book I didn't really under stand or appreciate. The unique, nonsensical, delightful adventure of Alice in Wonderland. This just missed the boat. On a side note, it was very beautiful, but I think I have had by fill of 3D movies. 2 1/2 stars