News Hit

Release: Now showing
Running time: 108 minutes
Rating: PG (fantasy violence and scary scenes)

Published 150 years ago, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has been a source of inspiration for other writers and storytellers, as it (and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass) has been remolded and shaped for different societies, eras and cultural values. Tim Burton’s 3D reimagining of the tale is one of the most anticipated films of the year, with its $150 million budget and an all-star cast that features perennial Burton favorites Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Michael Gough and Christopher Lee as well as Burton-newbies Michael Sheen, Anne Hathaway, Stephen Fry and Crispin Glover. Unfortunately, I left the screening disappointed by Burton’s handsome, but dull film. It seems Burton fell deeply into a CGI-created rabbit hole.

In this new version, Alice (Australian Mia Wasikowska) is a 19 year-old on the cusp of womanhood. When she receives a proposal from a boorish suitor, she retreats down a rabbit-hole, returning to “Underland” and its many characters, including the Mad Hatter (Depp), the White Queen (Hathaway), the Cheshire Cat (voiced by Fry), the White Rabbit (voiced by Sheen) and the Red Queen (Carter).

In collaboration with Disney (their first since his collaboration with subsidiary company Touchstone Pictures on Ed Wood), Burton has overwhelmed Carroll’s mathematically-precise whimsy and cleverness with an array of admittedly-polished visual effects (indeed, there seems to be an obvious schism between the actors and their environment, as Wasikowska points out that the set’s green screen environment is “really unusual and a strange way to make a film”). Although some of the film’s 3D sequences were very exciting, there were a number of moments that caused me to feel motion sickness.

Unfortunately (and more importantly), much of Carroll’s beautifully simple and minimalist characterizations are lost in the story’s translation to the big screen. Whilst Miranda Richardson’s mere stare left me freak out in the 1999 television version, I cannot say that Carter’s Red Queen left a lasting impression. Yes, she did yell most of her lines and cry the infamous “off with your head” (comically, the CGI animators made her head enormous in comparison to Carter’s extremely short body), but beyond that there was little more characterisation as evidenced in this clip:

Hardly the stuff of nightmares, right?

Hathaway, too, lacked substance in her stilted, Barbie-quality portrayal of the White Queen. If it weren’t for her blindingly white hair and vastly CGI created fairytale castle, there was nothing identifiably unique about her portrayal.

As for the Mad Hatter, it is impossible to know just how herbal his tea really was. His make and dress up was a wondrous fantasy, but Depp’s performance was too vague, reminiscent of his equally quirky, but unsatisfying portrayal of Willy Wonka in another children’s classic, 2005’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

If anyone can explain Depp’s accent in these clips, you are doing better than me.

Frankly, it is the newcomer who is the one to watch. Wasikowska’s Alice truly defines a new version of the much loved classic. Fighting the pressures placed on young women as well as the adventures that await her in Underland, Wasikowska’s performance is clear and strong, and provides a satisfying contrast with the swarm of CGI effects and overblown characterisations.

Indeed, the film’s screenwriter Linda Woolverton studied the behavioural patterns of Victorian-era Britain and the expectations of young women at the time. Unfortunately, much of this convincing behaviour is wasted in a (another) fantasy film that climaxes with a video game-like battle sequence that feels like it is on level ‘easy’.

Whilst the film retains Burton’s signature style (all kooky and dark), Disney’s Alice in Wonderland leaves little to the imagination.

Gabriele Oberman