Alice In Wonderland

Courtesy of okmovietrailers.com

I am going to admit that I wasn’t terribly thrilled about Tim Burton taking on Alice In Wonderland.  I have always been a fan of the Lewis Carroll books, and I immensely enjoy the original Disney rendition.  I will even admit that at first glance, it is a pairing that makes complete sense.  Wonderland is a kooky place full of wacky and fun characters; and historically, Tim Burton was the go-to guy for kooky, fun and lovable characters (see: Vincent).  In the past ten years, however, Burton has become formulaic and his film-making a bit tired.  It could be that I was a kid when Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, and Vincent came out, thus rendering me used to Burton’s film style; it could be that Burton has become a one trick pony; or, it could simply be that I am an adult now, and it takes a lot more to impress me.  Either way, I saw this as a “more of the same” opportunity for Burton.

I did not let my initial misgivings taint my movie-going experience.  In fact, I went in fully prepared to be proven wrong.  I was curious to see how the back story of Alice re-visiting Wonderland would play out.  I also was curious (“curiouser and curiouser”) to see the possible motivation behind CGI-ing some of the main characters (i.e. Helena Bonham Carter’s bulbous head).  The final thing that I was looking forward to was Crispin Glover as the Knave of Hearts.

The plot of Burton’s Alice In Wonderland is as follows: Alice, now 19, is set to be engaged to a Lord whom she has minimal interest in.  While Alice is living her life in the real world, Wonderland is having some turmoil of its own.  The Red Queen, having stolen the throne from the White Queen, has turned Wonderland on its head, and is torturing the creatures of Wonderland.   The creatures have banded together to search for the “Real Alice” to come and fight the Red Queen’s Jabberwocky and return the throne to the White Queen.  After searching far and wide, they have finally found her… Or have they?

I was pleased with Mia Wasikowska as Alice.  I enjoyed her very much in the HBO series In Treatment and was excited to see that she did a great job playing a sweet girl.  She did so with a bit of spunk, as well, and turned Alice into a bit of a heroine that little girls could surely look up to.  That was a very nice addition to the story.

Helena Bonham Carter was decent as the Red Queen, but not spectacular.  I find that it’s difficult to be Wowed by her when she’s doing so much of the same.   Another performance that I was not impressed by was Anne Hathaway as the White Queen.  Watching her made me uncomfortable, in fact.  She seemed to be stuck on stealing Billie Burke’s performance as Glinda, the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz; and her arms seemed to be stuck in one position for the entire film.  I also didn’t quite understand the choices behind her costuming.

Crispin Glover was good as the Knave (the Red Queen’s henchman, essentially).  At first, I thought he was going to ham/weird it up a bit, but he toned it down quite nicely.  He had an air of understated creepiness, and played villain very nicely.  His part was also bigger than I thought it would be, which was also nice.

Finally, there’s Johnny Depp’s performance as the Mad Hatter.  I saved his performance for last because I had the most issue with it.  I have actually been having issues with a few of Depp’s performances lately.  I don’t know what it is, but it seems that ever since his first Pirates of the Caribbean film, he’s simply been coasting.  His accent as the Hatter was Jack Sparrow with the occasional slip into Scottish, and his performance was a bit too crazy.  It was almost as if Depp came unhinged on the set and they managed to capture it all on film.

In addition to J. Depp’s batshit crazy Mad Hatter, there was a very uncomfortable sexual tension undertone between the Hatter and Alice written in.  It was super uncomfortable to watch because, although Alice is 19 when she re-visits Wonderland, we’re still viewing her almost as a child.   And because Johnny Depp was the biggest star in the film, this story arc managed to put the Hatter into the film much more than he originally should have been.

In all, the story was well written.  The additional storyline was not overdone nor did it seem unnecessary.  That said, the execution was fairly lame.  The Danny Elfman music score was pretty much the same as in Burton’s other films, and some of the acting left more to be desired.  The costume design was also fairly uninspired (as well as being uninspiring) – though, I was able to pick out all of the pieces we’ll wind up seeing being recreated.

Visually, the film was okay.  There were a couple of shots that were neat, but they were few and far between.  In fact, I find it fairly difficult to be wowed by a slew of computer graphics.  This is another reason I find Tim Burton’s films to be tired.  If he ever bothered having actual set design and didn’t  rely heavily on computer graphics and CGI, I would probably not be as bored when watching his films.

This film, while it very much wanted to impress, was plain boring.  It relied too much on gimmicks such as 3D, IMAX and technology, instead of showcasing what filmmakers are actually capable of.  The acting, for the most part, felt either too forced or too flat.  The costume and musical scores felt very uninspired, and we were left with a mediocre film that was attempting to disguise itself as great.

Perhaps Burton’s next venture will present a change of pace.

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Courtesy of austincinephile.com

Quite a bit late to the game, I went to see Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox last night.  Based on the book by Roald Dahl, the story follows Mr. Fox, his family, and friends as they have adventures and mishaps – all due to Mr. Fox’s mischievous nature.

After settling down with a newspaper column (after finding out that Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep) was with child), Mr. Fox (George Clooney) decides that he no longer wishes to live in a hole – but a tree instead.  Not only that, but he longs for the days when he was stealing birds from farmers.  It is then that he decides to take on the three biggest/most successful farmers there are – Boggis, a chicken farmer; Bunce, a duck and goose farmer; and Bean an apple farmer who makes a mean [alcoholic] cider (voiced by Michael Gambon).

Mr. Fox comes up with a master plan, and with the aid of his possum friend, Kylie (Wallace Wolodarsky), they put the plan into action.  Each night, they successfully hit each farm, until they come to Bean’s apple farm where they run into a bit of trouble from Rat (Willem Dafoe), Bean’s cider security guard.  Much to their luck, they’ve enlisted the help of Fox’s nephew, Kristofferson Silverfox (Eric Anderson), an ace athlete who takes Rat down and they manage to escape.  From there, the farmers decide to wage war on Mr. Fox, his family, and the entire underground animal kingdom.

This film, with original music by Jarvis Cocker (as Petey), is such a delight.  It’s really fun to watch stop-motion, the attention to detail is very clever – there is a romantic scene between Mr and Mrs Fox with this song from Disney’s Robin Hood playing softly in the background; and it is wildly funny!

Normally, I am not terribly excited about this; however, I am pleased that I got to see this film in a theatre with children, as I can attest to how much they also enjoyed it and were laughing right along with the adults.  Therefore, parents, if any of you are worried that your children may not enjoy this – rest assured that kids love it.

I have always enjoyed Wes Anderson’s films, and this film certainly is no exception.  It’s got the feel (and soundtrack) of his live-action films, but with a little extra.  I definitely hope to see more animation from him in the future, as you can tell that he (along with everyone else) had so much fun with this one.  It is definitely not to be missed.