24 Mar 10 Movie Review: A Waste of My Time, aka Alice in Wonderland

I actually saw Alice in Wonderland a few weeks ago. I really haven’t bothered to write a review because it was one of the worst films I’ve been coaxed into seeing in a very long while.

Two famous, over-used Burton faces introducing a third for our public consumption.

I usually have a very critical process for screening movies, so I’m really to blame for the horror, revulsion, shock and disgust I went through. I didn’t look up critic reviews, didn’t look up other viewer reports, didn’t even check out IMDB. I just blithely went along with what others said and instead, condemned myself to a couple hours of badly faked accents and Disney’s take on women’s empowerment.

I should have stopped to ask myself: “But it’s Tim Burton! It can’t be that bad! Creator of the Batman movie, Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands, Mars Attacks!, and Ed Wood! Modern day classics…but also Corpse Bride and Big Fish and Sleepy Hollow. That should have given me pause.

Here follows some spoilers, but honestly, read them and be done with it. If you’re still debating seeing the movie this late into the game, maybe I’ll save a few souls.

The movie opens with the typical low-level Disney teenage rebellion story. Alice has been turned from the protagonist in a tale on absurdism and identity crisis into a standard Disney princess: dead parent, issues with the other one, betrothed marriage, etc etc. The entire opening scenes of strange English life were incredibly stereotypical. The only funny thing was that if this really were an English engagement party, Alice wouldn’t have the opportunity to say yes, or she’d be kicked out onto the streets of London to be another victim of Jack the Ripper.

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, the Doormouse, the Cheshire Cat and the Hare have all been reduced to modern-day CGI templates.

Alice falls down the hole into Wonderland again, abducted by the typical cast of zany CGI characters. Oh my gosh, hilarious, one of them drinks tea and is over-caffeinated! Original. Alice’s various size transformations are reason to give her ever-skimpier and fashionable gowns, something that will resonate with people whose primary news is celebrity fashion magazines.

Johnny Depp’s appearance is bland and over-emphasized. He’s barely understandable when he’s on screen and less likable for his obviously Jim Carrey-like acting. Why are all the male characters in this movie either stupid (Alice’s fiancee), crazy (Johnny Depp), or incapable (the Knave)? Oh, that’s right, because it’s a Disney movie and any male in his right mind would stop himself, like I forgot to. Disney understands this and doesn’t market to them.

Alice must fight with the democractic metaphor (the White Queen) against the totalitarian metaphor (the Queen of Hearts). People who’ve actually read Lewis Carroll will point out that the Queen of Hearts is from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and the White Queen is from Through the Looking Glass, two separate stories. The Queen of Hearts has intimidated everyone in Wonderland and beheaded those she could not; somehow this strikes me as reasonable were I stuck in the hell-hole of Wonderland. No real explanation is given of the conflict between the Red Queen and the White Queen except in the last 10 minutes, and even then it’s not really resolved.

Sorry, the best part of the movie was hearing Christoper Lee’s voice through movie-quality speakers. Hello, Saruman, I’ve missed you. He’s essentially the Pokemon-style evolution of Vincent Price’s voice. <shivers>

Deep, resonant, and he actually says the words "ancient foe". Bravo!

The battle scene at the end was the worst. Typical CGI combat fare–things popping up and flying by the camera, cartoon-ish creatures oddly succeeding against cruel, evil Stormtrooper style-foes, standard ambient battle action in the background. Alice’s vapid reaffirmation of her beliefs in the midst of the battle to fight the Jabberwocky is really boring–it’s mostly non-religious ‘believe in yourself!’ stuff that you’d find in a book guiding teenage girls through life.

Worst of all, the absolute most terrible moment of all, was the consistent metaphors through the movie to ‘fudderwacking’. While Disney has, admittedly, taken a more open approach to sex and sexuality lately, it was still awkward humor. And the final dance scene, the hip-hop inspired catastrophe that I was too ashamed and embarrassed to watch (I cringed, I closed my eyes, I sunk into my chair) capped off this entirely terrible movie.

Tim Burton has lost his touch. Disney is still compete crap. Modern revisionism of ‘classic’ tales is cliche (Wicked, anyone?). And finally, an out-of-place hip-hop dance sequence tied into sexual innuendo in an all-white film is perhaps the final nail in the coffin for me to ever see anything like this again.

Grade: F

Tags: Alice in Wonderland, bad movies, Disney, horrible movies, terrible movies, tim burton, worst movies