Saturday 3 April 2010

Review - Alice in Wonderland 3D

Disney takes another stab at the classic Lewis Carroll story with this special effects laden blockbuster directed by Tim Burton. Alice (Mia Wasikowska,) a nineteen year old independent woman, is flung into the mysterious “Wonderland” where a host of oddball characters guide and prepare her for a destined fight with the Red Queen and the monstrous Jabberwocky.

This take on Alice in Wonderland works best if you ignore the script and let the excellent special effects and production design draw you in. The computer generated characters who inhabit Wonderland such as the sly Chesire Cat (Stephen Fry) and Tweedledum and Tweedledee (both voiced by Matt Lucas) are well realised and the voice acting is excellent. The majority of the voice-overs are done by a British cast which also includes Michael Sheen and Alan Rickman who turn in strong performances. As for the live action cast, Mia Wasikowska does a pleasant but unremarkable job as the perpetually baffled Alice. She takes a back seat to the cast of grotesques surrounding her. Helena Bonham-Carter is a hammy but entertainingly vicious Red Queen, and Anna Hathaway is unfortunately a rather boring White Queen, whose attempts at being kooky fall a bit flat. Crispin Glover makes a rare but welcome appearance in a big Hollywood blockbuster as the Red Queens right hand man. It's a one-note character but Glover brings an enjoyable creepiness to the role.

Before the film's release the most hype was for Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, and his performance is the most difficult to judge. It's incredibly uneven, vearing from a perfect mix of weirdness and humanity, to being overplayed and slightly cringy. Overall the performance is a bit of a disappointment, and the character sometimes stops being fun and becomes a bit tedious.

Tim Burton has stated in interviews that he wanted to avoid this version of Alice in Wonderland being a series of fantasy sequences with little linking each set piece. He has tried achieve this by introducing some bookend sequences revolving around Alice being forced into a marriage she has no interest in, and the amnesia aspect where Alice has forgotten she has visited Wonderland before as a young child. The script and story aren't fully developed though, so unfortunately for Tim the film essentially plays as a series of unrelated fantasy sequences.

Alice in Wonderland is glorious to look at, and looks nice in 3D even though there are few scenes that make full use of the 3D effect. But the shortfalls in the script and story, and the occasional hollow feeling which can affect any film burgeoning with computer generated effects, means this film isn't as successful as it should have been. Mostly entertaining, but somewhat of a missed opportunity.