Another take, more Narnian than Alice

Rating: 8/10 (7 August 2011)

Alice in Wonderland- 2010 Tim Burton's live-action take and pseudo-sequel to the classic 1951 Disney adaptation of the same name, it succeeds in bringing the animated characters to life in a live-action format full of imaginative imagery which is the film's undeniable greatest feat. The film has a slightly different flashback sequence, which would be the 1951 film since it has the same structure according to Alice's description of her dream, by making Alice closer to her Father rather than her sister, now named Margaret rather than Lorine and making the effects of Wonderland more important than in the original source or other adaptations. In this version, both Alice and her father are deemed insane for thinking about trading with other countries and Alice's journey into Wonderland, a land full of impossibilities, helps her stand up for what she believes and what her father believed and take a chance when everybody thinks they are insane, and make a good moral. Instead of being Alice's imagination, Wonderland is a real place more in the likes of Narnia where they are oppressed and find a savior in Alice who is pre-ordained to save them from the Queen and her Jabberwock. I like this fact since it resembles the chess environment that the second novel had more than any other adaptation with the liberty of making this land real. Characters such as the White Rabbit and the Dorm Mouse are now fleshed out and even given names, Mally the Mouse and McTwisp the Rabbit. But at a larger sacrifice, my favorite character, the March Hare, and subsequently the Cheshire Cat are now reduced to mere cameos, which is a shame because I love their character designs with making the Hare twitchy and the Cat freakier with his smile, not exactly a Glasgow smile, but it kind of resembles it. The Mad Hatter is the biggest flaw in the movie. I can accept the more realistic, kind of Narnian tone that Burton was making but the look of the Hatter is not mad enough, he looks like a depressed clown, especially during the White raid flashback scene when he was working for the White Queen as her hatter. He's not mad and random as the Hare is, which they are supposed to be equally mad or make the Hatter madder. The repeated riddle "Why is a raven like a writing desk" gets very old trying to make it serious, which the whole point of the riddle was to point out the non-sensical which the 1951 version pulled superbly and I still think the Futterwacken was not mad but just plain retarded. Very good imagery and it's nice to see a live action version of the animated classic come to life, with a different tone since Wonderland is not a dream but a Narnian real place with consequences and larger lessons in the end for Alice, but the Hatter is more like Sweeney Todd minus the singing with Jack Sparrow combined which hurts the film, giving it a 7 out 10.