Alice in Wonderland (2010)
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Alice in Wonderland Movie Review
Alice in Wonderland is a 2010 fantasy film directed by Tim Burton and starring Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. It’s such a mediocrity.
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“I used to hat The White Queen, you know.
Her head was so small.
It’s tiny. It’s a pimple of a head“
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This version doesn’t resemble the book or the original Disney classic in any way which is so unfortunate. Now, this movie started the trend of the company remaking their animated classics and giving them the live-action treatment and I am up for that if they change the material somewhat, but not to this extent and certainly not to change it for the worse.
And that is exactly what happened here. It acts as somewhat of a sequel to the original story as Alice is grown up and it’s peppered with so much forced feminism, courtesy of Linda Woolverton of course, that the movie really felt annoying throughout. It contains Alice slaying a dragon, a plot that genuinely makes sense and has a path and that was just atrocious and a slap in the face to Lewis Carroll.
I did somewhat like the characters though. Some of them at least. Alice I didn’t like at all, though Mia Wasikowska is very good in the role. This is also a Mad Hatter movie which was ridiculous and Johnny Depp here got one of his worse roles as the character is nowhere near as crazy as he ought to be.
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Turning to the positives, I did love what Helena Bonham Carter did with the Red Queen. She was magnificent in this role and the character is so funny with her large and small head fixation being hilarious in every such line of dialogue. Cheshire Cat and Caterpillar also got their moments to shine. But Stayne is dull and the rest are forgettable.
Let’s talk about the technicalities. Yes, Alice in Wonderland is only to be seen for its visuals as I found them superb. Yes, the use of CGI is overwhelming at times, but overall the film looks great as it’s very colorful as it should be and I found the imagery great often and the character designs are strong across the board. What I really also appreciated is its solid score, overall strong acting performances and particularly amusing dialogue at times. The humor can be pretty good here, I have to admit.
But Tim Burton’s direction truly is bad in this instance and I have to say that this mediocrity is by far one of his weakest ever films, it is probably going to stay in his worst five for a long time to come and deservedly so as it’s such a disappointment across the board.
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It’s one of the first billion-dollar club movies which is insane and honestly incomprehensible to me as it did not deserve it all and I do not get its appeal whatsoever. This is not the story that it’s supposed to be, it’s stripped of all of its lunacy and incomprehensible nature and that was the worst crime that could have been done to it in my opinion. I hold a strong grudge toward it in particular for many people have seen this bad film instead of the classic that is their 1951 version. A true shame.
Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland has remarkable special effects, simply astonishing art direction, solid first act, fine casting and it has its witty moments, but it is largely a so-so venture that has weak story and characters, mediocre third act and it lacks the director’s touch and the wonderful charm of the source material leading to what is one of the worst Tim Burton movies and the one which is endlessly inferior to Disney’s definitive version of the classic tale.
