I had faith in Mr. Burton (being Tim), and his creativity. Even though I told myself that his "reimaginings"/remakes are always shit (Planet of the Apes, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), I still had faith that maybe, just maybe, this would be good. After all, Alice in Wonderland was the movie he was made to make. And yet, he wasted this opportunity, and turned it into a complete waste. Alice is a waste of talent, time, money, and the chance to recreate the classic tale with the actors and technology we have today.
The fact of the matter (hatter) is that it's not Alice in Wonderland, despite being called and advertised as such. This story involves Alice returning to Wonderland. Oh wait, sorry, UNDERLAND. Yeah. In this fucking movie they call it UNDERLAND. WHY.
Apparently, Alice, took a journey there when she was younger and went through the classic story as told by the fantastic animated Disney film. I don't know, because she's stupid I guess, she thought it was called Wonderland. It's not. It's called Underland. Stupid.
Anyway, there's convoluted junk about destiny and such and blah blah which is fine, because they already screwed up the story. The major thing I have issues about is how it slanders the story and characters. The biggest crime here being Johnny Depp's interpretation of the Mad Hatter. It wasn't the Mad Hatter. It wasn't. It was some weird, Jack Sparrow, Scottish, creepy, sword-wielding, asshole. NONE of those things have ANYTHING to do with the character. The point of the character is this: he is a hat maker who has serious mental illness and is so wrapped up in what his only world and what he's saying that he's incapable of relating and dealing with people. The stuff he says makes sense to him and he's just simply mad. In this, he is an inconsistent mess that's weird in all the wrong ways and not Mad enough. The Mad Hatter SHOULD NEVER fight Crispin Glover with a huge sword in a battle. He should stick to drinking half cups of tea and making hats.
The only performances I enjoyed were those of Alice (Mia Wasikowska), the Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry), the Caterpillar (Alan Rickman), and the Red Queen (Helen Bonham Carter). Others like Anne Hathaway's White Queen (who can put in a good performance) and Crispin Glover were strange and boring.
The one thing I think about when it comes to Alice is color and a sense of awe. We don't get either. Alice goes to Wonder-sorry-Underland and just shrugs it off and thinks it's a dream. This isn't the actresses fault, as I stated I enjoyed her, it's the script that needed work. We also don't get color. Because of the story, the Red Queen has taken over and everything's barren and such. Which makes sense. But it never once looks like Wonderland, everything has a gray shade to it. Yes, occasionally it's nice to look at, but you're so confused (not in a good way) and bewildered about the choices the actors and the director are making that it detracts from the visuals.
Alright, these next points are nitpicking (I guess) but they severely took away from my experience. The first, is after the ridiculous battle, the Mad Hatter does something so out of character, out of the setting and time frame (being based in the 1800s), and just...fucking ridiculous. Basically, the Mad Hatter breakdances.
...
...
...Oh, no I'm not kidding. The Mad Hatter breakdances. That sentence makes me cringe.
The second point is that of the Jabberwocky. It's supposed to be a terrifying creature, and yet looks like a Chinese dragon shown on the New Year and it shoots purple lighting out of it's mouth. I'm serious. Another complaint is that they got Christopher Lee to voice it. This would be amazing. If the Jabberwocky had more than one line. They spent money and Mr. Lee's time for him to say one line. You have one of the greatest sounding voices at your disposal, and you give him one fucking line? Bullshit.
That's all I have to say.
That was bullshit.
Underland.
Fuckerland.
-Martin.
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