Go Hide, Runaway Bride

Rating: 7/10 (25 January 2011)

I'll admit something before I start. I never enjoyed Lewis Caroll's classic. As a child I'd read different versions of Alice in Wonderland but they always left me somewhat unimpressed. Maybe it reflected the innocence in the young minds of 1865. Maybe Cartoon Network & the IT boom made us more matured than we ought to have been in our childhood. In any case, when I saw the trailer of Alice's escapades being re-recited by the Tim Burton-Johnny Depp 7th combo, it got just curiouser for me.
I was actually impressed by the way the movie started & unwounded. Writer Linda Woolverton (one of the writers of the classic Lion King) chose to start with an older Alice (a smiling Mia Wasikowska) who gets to revisit Wonderland, which she visited as a child. "Return to Wonderland" - or something similar, would have sounded more apt a title. Thereon, Burton plans a setup at the end of which we see Alice running away into the woods and following the same talking rabbit down the (probably same) hole into Wonderland where the 3-D effects play their real role.
I watched this film for Johnny Depp. I waited for the Tea Party episode which is probably the only scene I loved & enjoyed in this story. In the interim, Alice meets the usual medley of characters who were mostly "transmogrified" Actors, welcoming her back to Wonderland. Animating the real actors' faces for some of the characters, worked very much in favour of creating the right atmosphere. The Red Queen (a hamming Helena Bonham Carter) with a blown up head & Matt Lucas in the twin Tweedle roles were noteworthy. That was it. It went all down-hill after that. Some interesting characters like the puffing caterpillar (Alan Rickman) and the Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry) light up a few moments. But the story swiftly gets into action mode, focusing on a tale of tiff between the sisters, the Red Queen & the White Queen (a lost Anne Hathway with white hair & black brows) and ending the Wonderland story with a silly action sequence which seemed totally seemed out of place.
Sadly, I wasn't impressed by the Tea Party episode & many other scenes. But Johnny Depp yet again remains one of the few things to watch out for. He's an actor with a gifted versatility which helps him slip effortlessly into any role. The Mad Hatter wouldn't have been half of what it was without Depp, never mind the screen space allotted to him. This, combined with the beautiful imagery with all its tiny detailing by Burton helped fill the void created by the amateurish screenplay which was void of the wit that made Depp-Burton's animated Corpse Bride (2005) & writer Woolverton's Lion King (1994), an enjoyable experience. Thankfully, the 3-D didn't mar the experience of the beautiful images to a noticeable extent and in some places even enhanced the experience. My personal 3-D favourites were the scenes when Alice falls down the hole & the one when the Cheshire Cat appears out of thin air in the forest.
An action sequence to end a kiddie-flick? Come On! I still cant digest it. Maybe Burton lost sight of the child-adult line he wanted to cross-over like Christopher Nolan did with Batman. A messy final product ! But the scenes after Wonderland which completed the 1 Billion $ grossing movie are a face-saving grace and diluted the bad taste that I feared I would have.
6 + 1 / 10
(tempted to keep it at 6 out of 10 but a plus one for Director Burton's visual perception, writer Woolverton's fast paced story & Depp's performance which made it slightly more than a direct-from-book adaptation)