Curiouser and Curiouser

The last time we sat in a movie theater, the movie happened to be Avatar just a day or two after Christmas. Yes, it's been that long since we've seen a movie, and we decided to break our unintentional cinematic sabbatical with Tim Burton's latest, Alice in Wonderland.

Incorporating well-loved characters from both Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, Tim Burton's Alice is more action/adventure. Young Alice has suffered nightmare's all her life, and all depicting the same thing: falling down a rabbit hole into a wondrous land filled with talking animals and strange people. but on one particular day -- the day she is supposed to receive a marriage proposal -- she runs from the party, following a white rabbit dressed in a waistcoat into the forest. The rabbit disappears behind a tree and when Alice follows, she finds herself falling into her nightmares made real, where she is fated to battle the ferocious Jabberwocky in order to save Wonderland from the Queen of Hearts.

I admit to being a bit nervous, knowing that this wouldn't be the Alice with which I was familiar. Would it stray too much? Would it make the original story unrecognizable? But, Linda Woolverton's script does great job taking those same characters and fashioning a story that's both old and new. Though the White Rabbit, the Doormouse, the talking flowers, even the Mad Hatter insist that she's been to Wonderland before, Alice sees things as if for the first time, following the original stories to some extent but veering off in a plausible way to make the story interesting and entertaining.

I liked the acting, too, from Johnny Depp's decidedly Mad Hatter to Stephen Fry's "charming" Cheshire Cat to Matt Lucas as both Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. But Anne Hathaway as the White Queen and Helena Bonham Carter as the Queen of Hearts stole the movie for me. Hathaway's Queen was comically regal and Bonham Carter's Queen (with an enormous head) was the perfect spoiled brat.

For the most part, the special effects were fantastic. The 3D served more to enhance the depth of scenes rather than to wow the audience with spears flying over the audience or cheap tricks. The Queen of Heart's big head on a tiny body, the changing eyes of the Mad Hatter, the myriad beasts and soldiers (chess pieces and playing cards) -- quite a feast for the eyes. The only effect that left me flat was for Crispin Glover's Stayne, the Knave of Hearts. The character stands very tall and thing, but the CGI movements were very stiff and reminded me I was looking at an effect.

Overall, Alice in Wonderland turned out to be a fun film, and even better in 3D.

Image from Wikimedia Commons.