JOEL's VIEW
The movie was pretty good. The set design was ingenious. The cast was good.
The way that Johnny Depp recited “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll was incredible with a dark but deep Scottish brogue.
The supporting cast of voices and actors was superb. Helena Bonham Carter got her first taste of playing the antagonist in this movie and she was really good. Anne Hathaway played the character she usually plays, very light and princessy, she did pretty well.
Timothy Spall, of Harry Potter fame, voices Bayard, the bloodhound. Michael Sheen, who was famous for starring as Tony Blair in The Queen with Oscar winner, Helen Mirren, and starring in the Broadway production and the movie adaptation of the play, Frost/Nixon, voices the White Rabbit. He was pretty good.
Alan Rickman who became well-known after starring in the Emma Thompson adaptation of Sense and Sensibility but rose to international fame as Professor Severus Snape in the Harry Potter movie series. He is, as always, intimidating but fun to watch. He has one of those ominous basso profundo voices you can’t get out of your head.
Imogene, Alice’s aunt is played by Tony winner Frances de la Tour. Frances de la Tour played one of the teachers in her Tony winning performance for Best Featured Actress in a Play for The History Boys. She was really good.
The makeup for this movie was Oscar-worthy, hands down. The animation they did on the Cheshire Cat was amazing. The way they made him disappear and reappear is just astounding.
So out of a possible 10, I would give the film an 8.4 out of 10. It wasn’t the best film I had ever seen but it was indeed good.
*****
LISE's VIEW
Joel knows all the voices and who has awards, I just know what I like, and I really liked this version of Alice.
Several people bemoaned to me that it wasn’t true to the Wonderland story. Although I loved the Lewis Carroll fantastical tale, I just put aside my preconceptions (as I had to do with the new Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law) and let the film take me where it might. And it took me to delightful places.
Mia Wasikowska as a not-so-childish Alice was pale, wan and quite spunky. Her family and pseudo-friends, who want her to marry this supercilious fop Hamish, were suitably self-absorbed and annoying, and the blandness of costumes and environment BEFORE her trip to Underland was a neat contrast with the whimsical cacophony of color and characters once she was down Under.
And all the folks you want to see are there – and do not disappoint. Despite my dislike for Johnny Depp, he was creepy and kooky enough as The Mad Hatter. The touches by wardrobe of thimbles and pin-cushion rings on fingers make watching a second time interesting. The bright orange hair and eyes were quite snicker-snack themselves. I don’t grasp why he had to change accents, from a hatter-like lisp to an angry brogue when a little bit puffed, but it wasn’t too obnoxious, to me, at least.
Helena Bonham Carter is another overly precocious actor scarcely worth tolerating, but she was perfect as the Bloody Big Head, the Red Queen. The digital work to make her head 10 times larger than everyone else’s was fascinating, and her screeches of “Off with his/her head!” were suitably evil and selfish.
Watch out, though. Those heads floating in the moat around the castle are pretty gross. Children might like the image, and Alice’s foot coming out of a long-dead and damp mouth with goo all over it, but I gagged.
The digitization of Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum was amazing, also. The geniuses took a bald Matt Lucas, dressed him up and then used his actions times TWO, with differing but equally vapid expressions for each. Really cool and very funny if you watch them closely.
Finally, those who are original Alice die-hards will still find some treats in Tim Burton’s edition. The Cheshire Cat swirls, floats, disappears and reappears just as he should, with the ever-present grin, and the Blue Caterpillar (Absalom), voiced by the consummate actor Alan Rickman, really smokes his hookah and intones glumly as to Alice’s frailties. This film is worth watching just for Cheshire and Rickman’s Caterpillar.
Those who love and can still recite Jabberwocky will get a snippet of it, albeit slightly altered and in Depp’s weird angry accent, and find that the poem becomes interestingly intertwined with the plot.
Give it a chance. It’s beautiful. It’s clever. But it’s probably more for teens and adults than smaller children – not because of anything inappropriate, but simply because the fascinating sights this Alice offers take a bit more thought to appreciate.
PG, :108 minutes
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