Squandered Potential

Rating: 5/10 (6 March 2010)

When I heard about this film I was thrilled, not least because I am a Tim Burton and Johnny Depp fan, but also because I loved Alice in Wonderland. I thought there was such potential for the film but after seeing it yesterday I have to admit I am disappointed. The potential - a film with limits that cannot be defined, crazy is whatever is outside of normal perception. The previous collaborations have been films where the abnormal or extraordinary have been rendered normal or ordinary by the viewing of a film in which the oddities are perceived as regular. You still retain the sense of wonder at the same time as the shock of something outside your general sphere of understanding. Alice however wanted to be something so badly, and it could have been. However it wasn't. I think that maybe not including older characters as well as new characters could have helped, how can you fit that many important character developments into a (just under) two hour film? And the truth is they couldn't and didn't. Personally I didn't feel attached to anyone. Alice was unemotional and considering she thought it was dream was extremely reluctant to even crack a smile at the madness, the dormouse was bizarre fluff, turning up at important moments with no real input, the caterpillar, great in character but really pointless, the Hatter, switching between sane and insane when the scene suited, the red and white queens both flimsy and with completely futile actions. At least in Narnia we knew why the children were there to save the land, here I have no idea why. Neither character was properly developed or given a plot line to react to. They were both acting their characters. And yes, Helena Bonham Carter was very good, but I didn't see any relation to anything really. The White Queen was a thankless and pointless part, why was she the best choice? Why couldn't she fight for her own land? There may have been very good reasons but this wasn't cleared up in the film and made her seem fairly vapid and needless. If they had been more honest to the telling of the film then the 'champion' i.e Alice would have been crowned ruler of the land. I had hope for the film and its not terrible if it were the normal film put out there by the big studios for a blockbuster. But I had hope in the actors and the director and the previous films they had produced. I left the cinema confused and just wishing there had been a little more 'muchness' which they accused Alice of losing - well this film lost what they had. Shame.