Alice in Underland

Hungry HatsI liked Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland much more than I expected.

A grown-up Alice returns to Wonderland. It sort of recreates the original story, then one of Tweedle Dee’s poems, and adds some new stuff so it can be an even bigger special effects movie.

It might have come across like Spielberg’s Hook, which I enjoyed enough at the time, but which left an empty taste in my mouth as time went on.

But so far I’m still finding Alice pretty tasty. The art design was great, which is typical of Burton. The Tweedles were just about creepy enough. The bulbous Red Queen was marvelous. And I like how it looked reasonably like both the original Tenniel illustrations and Disney’s hand-drawn animated versions. Shouldn’t Humpty Dumpty have been around somewhere? The bandersnatch didn’t quite live up to my frumious  expectations, but the big bad monster at the end was totally fantastic!

Depp was a little depressing as the Hatter, which I think is a good thing. Alan Rickman as the caterpillar was  wonderful. But I was really excited when I realized that the most imperiously awesome Christopher Lee was the Jabberwocky!

Which brings us to one of the problems I do have with the movie. The creature is a Jabberwock, people.  The story about it is Jabberwocky. Every time they called the creature a Jabberwocky, it made my teeth hurt.

I really don’t understand what visiting Wonderland has to do with trade with China. Is Burton saying that China is our world’s Wonderland? Or, since she leaves her beaus in both Wonderland and England, is he saying that China is the Real World?

And how come it’s not called Alice in Underland, since they make a point of correcting Alice’s earlier mistaken name for the place? Go see for yourself.

About Lyle Verbilion

I'm just wanderin' around lookin' at things. Wow.
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