Alice without the charm, wit or amusement of the books...seems like it was just made to make money, which it did!

Rating: 6/10 (8 July 2010)

It sort of bothered me the characters had names as opposed to the Cheshire Cat, The Caterpillar, etc. It was like I was waiting for the names to be explained and they seems to just throw Narnia sounding names in for the characters without a thought. It really took me out of the movie.
I thought the Caterpillar "Who are you?" speech would be more inspired. In the old Disney film it was. I thought the Cat was a bit creepy too, like more icky creepy than fun creepy.
And the break dancing Hatter was odd too. I read reviews where people said the film would explain more about the Hatter, yet I really didn't learn anything more from him. I guess some dancing and naming characters is supposed to add depth, which it didn't.
Overall, this movie could have been WAY WORSE. It could have been all trendy lingo and dumb jokes, but it wasn't up to Carroll wit at all. I wish this would have been a musical, since Burton did OK with Sweeney Todd. It would have given it charm where this had none.
Wasn't it the Queen of Hearts that said "off with her head?"
I get the arm thing the White Queen was doing, since she was supposed to be "la-dee-da" but it wasn't combined with any decent acting, so it came off rather odd.
And the Jabberwock...notice I left out the y there...because it doesn't have one...did anyone read the Alice books here? I mean, they must have because the "eat me, drink me" scene seems out of the book. I didn't get why she was back to fight this monster because he was killed in the poem and the poem was a parody anyway. It just seems like every film now has to have a struggle of good and evil, it can't just be. The Alice story is supposed to be fun and full of nonsense, not be a good/evil struggle.
In a way, it reminds me of Return to Oz, where Dorothy comes back to find Oz all messed up. Yeah, I liked that movie much better. At least Return to Oz tried.
Overall, I watched this for free, so I can't say it wasn't worth the money I paid to view it and I got through it though the two people I was watching it with fell asleep and I don't really blame them. I mean, the pace of the film was fast enough and colorful enough and gave me enough WTF moments to get me to the end!
I wish there would have been more plot around Alice wanting to be a New Woman. I mean, sure she doesn't want to marry a guy, but then all of a sudden, she's a trading merchant apprentice? In the Victorian era? Maybe they wanted a pirate type sequel? And the Caterpillar turning into a butterfly would have been a great metaphor if Alice had changed during her visit but I really couldn't see that, maybe it was all the stiff acting. All the characters were so 2-D, I was dying for a bit of real acting.
And the Hatter, though not as weird and out of place as Depp's Willy Wonka, was still playing weird for weird's sake. Tim Burton is better than that, so why does he keep doing this? It seems the movie was only made to make money, which it did and I guess kids like seeing flashing colors, 3-D and a lot of movement...though I do believe even small children like a fairy tale to have a plot...maybe not anymore.
I give it a six. One for Crispin, one for Chris Lee, one for the good use of effects in Eat Me, Drink Me scene, one for the outfits, one for the scene where the White Queen is making a potion since it made my friend laugh and one for the fact it wasn't three hours long and knew when to quit. Now if it only knew how to cultivate charm and wit!