I Didn't Fall For It

Rating: 4/10 (18 February 2011)

This is one of the most disappointing movies I have seen in the last five years or so. Alice in Wonderland should has the premise that should have fit Tim Burton's creative mind perfectly. His collaborations with Johhny Depp have generated some of the most fascinating work in cinema history (Ed Wood; Edward Scissorhands especially) but, instead he failed to keep the record going. He should have taken over the screenplay from Linda Woolverton and created darker, more dimensional characters (regardless of it being a Disney movie); instead, what we get is Tim Burton for the family audience. I would have preferred his take on Lewis Carroll's novel rather than a rehash of every Hollywood child fantasy film. I thought the younger Alice in the film looked the part of the original illustrations and would have been perfect for the role. Johnny Depp had a perfect opportunity with the Mad Hatter and ruined it with his accent and incoherent speech. Tim Burton destroyed the Mad Hatter with his ugly costume design. I was disappointed to not hear Hatter shout "Change places!" I understand he is saddened by resent events, but even a mumbled, sad, "Change places" would have been nice to hear and keep his character intact through a simple and effective effort. Yes, the cgi is well done, but that is to be expected with a $200 million budget and the imagery is shallow (no audience that has any depth will fall for the distracting trippy color scheme that Burton relies on all to heavily as the backdrop of the movie (as if the cgi has become the star of the storytelling process).