Mr. Burton... what happened?

Rating: 4/10 (11 March 2010)

When I first read Burton is doing his own version of Alice in Wonderland, I thought that this is a match made in heaven. Insanity of Tim Burton coupled with inherent insanity of Alice's story meant that things just couldn't go wrong..especially since it was a given that Depp and Bonham-Carter must be in it, too.
Well, something did go wrong. And it's a little bit hard to simply point out what.
I might just as well start with the story. I never thought I would say something like this about a Burton movie but it was too.. well, normal. I always thought that one of the biggest virtues of "Alice in Wonderland" was how it subtly yet efficiently tapped into one's primal fear of not being able to trust his/her own senses and of losing one's mind. Once Alice drops down into the rabbit hole she gets dislodged from reality, things stop making sense, there's nothing to hold on to, no referential point to start from, no friends by her side to have for comfort and aid. Nearly everything that happens to the (original) Alice feels random and disjointed, every situation is weird and almost every character is inconsistent - sometimes they are friendly, sometimes hostile, sometimes indifferent, but almost always utterly insane. Alice's story is wonderful, yet profoundly disturbing.
Burton's Alice in comparison is rather tame. For some reason he opted for a different, grown-up Alice, who essentially revisits Wonderland not to come to terms with growing up, but rather rebel against an arranged marriage and norms being forced upon her. And this is where most of the problems lie. What we have here is a weird mesh-up of the old, familiar Alice story and the oh-so-clichÃ© prophetical-hero-saves-the-land-from-evil plot we have seen so many times already. The sense of discovery is gone, but what's worse that sense of disorientation and overall insanity is almost completely subdued. Characters Alice meets are pretty well known by everyone, but this time around they are almost without exception friendly and helpful, some even getting very obviously romantically interested in Alice. She herself is mostly neither scared nor surprised, almost throughout the entire movie she blatantly accepts everything around her simply by repeating that it's all a dream. I don't know if it's a matter of bad casting, bad directing, or was done completely on purpose to further reinforce the fact that this Alice is now much more mature and down-to-earth, but if Alice essentially does not care about strange things around her, why should we?
There's very little Burton has to offer in his version of Alice. Nothing new or Burtonesque or even very interesting happens; it's like reading the very same, familiar story but with some other artist doing the illustrations.
Things are somewhat saved by excellent performances of Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter. Depp's version of Mad Hatter is joy to behold to people who like to pay attention to tiny details; his accent shifts constantly, and so does his personality, and some of these shifts are often rather subtle. But even though watching someone who knows how to act doing what he does best is pretty enjoyable, this Mad Hatter still isn't, well, Mad Hatter. The character of Mad Hatter should above all be... mad. Insane. Unpredictable. This one is at best mildly eccentric, but also noble and rather lovable. In fact, this could be said for almost every character in Burton's Alice - they are not insane, they just act a bit strangely, and not by much. And they all have a good heart. I know this is a Disney movie and everything, but come on - even in the cartoon the characters were very true to those from the original book, why are they now so consistently friendly and loyal to Alice? Where's the fun in that?
Bonham-Carter's Red Queen is spot-on, on the other hand. It's hard not to have flashes of Miranda Richardson's Queen Elizabeth from Black Adder (the character which was, after all, based on the Red Queen, and let's not forget Miranda later actually played the Red Queen in Hallmark's version of Alice, and she played it rather close to her earlier role), but still, Helen's Red Queen is a rather welcome comic relief. Her interpretation of "Off with his/her head!" never gets old, and what should be an irritating and whiny character somehow ends up being a fresh sight in an otherwise rather pedestrian movie.
White Queen - played by Anne Hathaway - is a bit hammy and over-the-top, which I guess was the point, but it failed to work on many levels. She does get some funny moments though.
I must mention the all 3D thing, too. It simply does not work. In Avatar it was great, but it wasn't merely because of better technology; it was also the fact that Avatar is a bright, colorful movie, and since 3D essentially darkens the screen somewhat, the experience is not diminished. Burton's Alice is often dark and gloomy (we are talking about Burton, after all), and when you put on your 3D glasses the movie simply becomes too dark, like you are watching it with sunglasses on. It really puts a dent on your viewing pleasure.
So - "Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland 3D". In my opinion, at best this is a mildly enjoyable movie which will be somewhat appreciated by fans of Depp/Burton/Carter, at worst it's a boringish, pedestrian and rather underwhelming experience. Bottom line, it just isn't Alice. Tim Burton somehow missed the point, and let's hope that what he has in store for us will surpass this entry by far.
4/10