A 21st-century Alice (but I loved it)

Rating: 8/10 (1 June 2010)

The key is at the end when Alice returns to the real world and sails off to the Far East. It is a option which would have been unthinkable to women of her station in the 19th century. But Burton evidently wanted a "modern" ending, where women have choices which were not available two centuries ago.
Equally scriptwriter, Linda Woolverton, has invented a storyline not present in the books. The film has elements of a medieval epic and a morality play. There is a long journey, knights in armour, battles. Right and wrong are clearly defined. Destiny is pitted against free will: scrolls are brought out to demonstrate Alice's vocation to kill the Jabberwocky. Although she doesn't agree, she nevertheless ends up in a suit of armour – a cross between Joan of Arc and St George – killing the dragon, in a fight scene evidently designed to appeal to the boys in the audience.
Even so, overall, I loved it.
Lewis Carroll was part of my childhood. As a teenager I discovered the "Hunting of the Snark" and learned "Jabberwocky" by heart, adding portmanteau words to cultural baggage. The Cheshire cat gave me the name for my book "If You Only Walk Long Enough". And although the film is not the Alice in Wonderland of the books, I still loved it for the wild colours and exuberant atmosphere.
If the books appeal to children it is because they reflect a child's world. There are many things children must do without understanding why – life simply happens. Children grow taller (Alice grows and shrinks). Words and logic are a source of entertainment and mystery. Everybody seems contrary. Good and evil are only sketchily defined.
In the film – which is based on Carroll's whole oeuvre, not just "Wonderland" – Alice still finds a bottles labelled "Drink Me" to make her smaller, and cake which makes her grow again. The Mad Hatter still has tea parties, the Red Queen still says "Off with his head" at every opportunity, plays croquet using a flamingo as a mallet and a hedgehog as the ball, and is generally a dangerous person to know.
On the other hand, all the King's horses and all the King's men were evidently unable to put Humpty Dumpty together again for the film. And Alice is now 19-years-old and destined to marry a man who is evidently no match for her tomboyish nature. At a critical moment she is saved by the March Hare and the Caterpillar.
The film is not the books, although there are many scenes taken from them and, visually, the CGI borrows intelligently on Tenneil's 19th century artwork. But it is an original work of art.
What did other spectators think of it? "There was a general clapping of hands".