Beautiful visuals, with some good performances- but there is something missing...

Rating: 6/10 (7 June 2010)

I personally really love the book, I enjoy the characters and their situations, even if the story is rather oddball and not easy to adapt. In terms of adaptations, the animated film is still my favourite, mainly because I have a lot of nostalgia for it. Coming from somebody who likes Tim Burton's work, I enjoyed this re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland, but I also felt it could have been better. Is it Burton's worst? I think not, that dishonour goes to Planet of the Apes, and I also preferred this over Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. But is it his best? No, not by a long shot- Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood and Beetle Juice are my personal favourites, while Batman(and its sequel, one of the better sequels to anything I've seen actually), Big Fish and Sleepy Hollow are also brilliant. I haven't seen Sweeney Todd all the way through, I am just wondering whether Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter are better than George Hearn and Angela Lansbury in the roles of Sweeney and Mrs Lovett. Anyway that's another story.
Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland does have a lot of virtues as well as faults. Starting with the virtues, the visuals are absolutely fantastic. The costumes, especially in the first twenty minutes are absolutely exquisite, the scenery is dark, colourful, lush and wondrous and the special effects and cinematography are well above average too, especially with the imposing-looking Jabberwocky. There have been some comments that didn't like Danny Elfman's score, while his score for Edward Scissorhands is better, I liked his score here, it was fantasy-like and atmospheric and better than his score for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, where the Oompah Loompah song especially really annoyed me. It also moves quite quickly, and I liked the references to the original story.
Technicalities aside, there were also some very good performances, as well as some disappointments. Alan Rickman was deliciously suave and dour as the Blue Caterpillar, even if his role was somewhat brief, while Stephen Fry was absolute purr-fection as the Cheshire Cat, with a cheeky smile and bagging some of the best lines such as "I never get involved in politics". Matt Lucas was funny as TweedleDum and TweedleDee, and Michael Sheen was very nice as the White Rabbit. The ever-exceptional Christopher Lee was appropriately menacing as the Jabberwocky, while Helena Bonham Carter is suitably shrill as the Red Queen, though expect the constant repetition of "Off with his/her head" every now and again. A big surprise though was Anne Hathaway, not only did she look stunning but she brought just the right touch of the sweet and the sinister, and Barbara Windsor as the Dormouse was an inspired casting choice.
However, there were one or two performances that weren't quite there. I am sorry to say I found Mia Wasikowska bland as Alice, she looks beautiful but she just didn't quite convince. Then again in her defence, Alice I have found one of the least interesting characters in the story, I always found myself attached to the Cheshire Cat, Queen of Hearts, Mad Hatter, The Mock Turtle and the White Knight myself. Speaking of the Mad Hatter, I was a little disappointed with Johnny Depp's performance. I liked the make-up and everything, but compared with his more poignant and more human characters(ie. Edward) I felt Depp overdid it with the accent and the eccentricity of the character. Crispin Glover I wasn't so sure about either, I can't put my finger on why, maybe it was because Stayne is a very slimy character and perhaps the sliminess was overdone but maybe that's just me.
Onto the cons of Alice in Wonderland, the story structure I found disjointed. It does start off really well, but it does meander, and then there are scenes that don't quite work especially the Futterwacken Dance, which was out of place and had the WTF? factor about it. Plus while I appreciated the references, the theme of madness is only briefly touched upon, and that was disappointing. While there are some nice funny lines here and there, the writing is clumsy and inconsistent in general, Alice's dialogue in particular is clumsily written at times and woodenly delivered, not to mention a part before the flashback with the Hatter, White Queen and Jabberwocky Hatter's rant sounded like that of a pirate. Burton's direction here isn't as innovative as it is in his earlier films, and some of the characters are devoid of depth and heart, some of them just come and go like a series of vignettes. I think these flaws could have been avoided with a longer film length by twenty minutes or so.
Overall, it is worth watching by all means, but it just lacks something. 6.5/10 Bethany Cox