Pretty But

You know I was eagerly anticipating Tim Burton's take on Alice in Woderland. I usually like Burton's films, and I love all things Alice. I love Johnny Depp, and the trailer looked great. It seemed like all the planets were aligned for this movie to be amazing, right?

The visuals were, hands down, the best thing in the movie. The costumes and backgrounds and make-up were great, wildly imaginative, whimsical, and masterfully conceived. At the same time, they were incredibly true to the illustrations in the book, which blew me away. The Jabberwocky looked just like the picture from the book, and the drawing of Alice facing him with the sword is taken directly from the book. The dodo (cane included!) makes an appearance, Twidledee and Twidledum carry their wooden swords, the hybrids of rocking horse and pegasus show up, the Gryphon is there, the butler toads… Basically, the characters either look almost exactly like they do in the book, or their design has been improved. Wonderland is a feast of shapes and colors, of creatures and crazy architecture, and that was a lot of fun to look at.

The acting was also great, and everyone in the movie did a very good job portraying their characters. Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter reminded me of Jack Sparrow a couple of times, though, but that is forgivable (as opposed to his little dance, which isn't). Helena Bonham Carter ruled as the Red Queen and looked freakish in a good way, but Anne Hathaway (who looked freakish in a bad way) didn't move me nearly as much. Mia Wasikowska did an excellent job as Alice, and Stephen Fry's Cheshire Cat was extraordinary.

Here comes the but, though. The movie was pretty to look at, granted, and everyone involved convinced me this world was real and the characters were real. Unfortunately, the story was horribly lacking, and that ruined the movie for me. It is not that the story was missing something; there simply was no story to speak of. As soon as Alice lands in Wonderland (and I'm not spoiling anything by saying this), we learn she is supposed to slay the Jabberwocky with the vorpal blade. However, what follows that revelation is basically an hour and a half of touring Wonderland until the elements to fulfill the prophecy come together and she can take a crack at it. That's it. All the character development takes place right at the end of the movie, all the growing Alice does and the realizations she comes to happen right at the end of the film instead of through her time and adventures in Wonderland. During her travels, Alice is simply thrown from one place to the next so that the audience can see this bizarre land and meet its even more bizarre dwellers. It's an hour an a half of pretty scenery and nothing else, a pretty package with no present inside. And that, in my opinion, is a bad idea and a worse film. If this is supposed to be a journey of self-discovery, said discovery of the self should happen throughout the story, not in a mere five seconds right at the end. If felt more like an afterthought, as if the creators of the film, busy as they were giving us a tour of the place, had forgotten all about it, and then realized their oversight and tried to put something together in a hurry.

I hope you have noticed I am not discussing how faithful Linda Woolverton's screenplay is to the books, because that is not relevant. The movie is true enough to the spirit of the books to render that point moot, but there is no story in this movie, no progression, no evolution, and that's what I take exception to. If this is the Alice Tim Burton is satisfied with, well, that makes one of us. What a missed opportunity to craft a memorable tale.