Movie review: Alice in Wonderland
3/8/2010
By Dan Pickles
Staff Writer
Photo courtesy of impawards.com
To adapt Alice in Wonderland into a movie is risky business, in my opinion. The very nature of the book (which relies more on absurdity and wordplay than actual plot) works against anyone that would choose to create a piece of narrative cinema from it. Americans don’t deal well with absurdity (or at least, absurdity that’s not of our own design) and that leaves the creator with the grievous decision of disappointing fans of the literature by forcing it into a sensical mold, or leaving closed-minded audiences confused by an abundance of absurdity. Who would dare take up such a gauntlet?
Turns out Tim Burton would, with the backing of my nemesis from beyond the grave, Walt Disney.
As you’ve probably surmised, Disney isn’t about to put out a movie that would dare displease an audience, so the story has been remolded to conform to a more standard narrative structure. Gone is the nonsense literature of the film’s predecessor; in its place is a story of rebellion and oppression in Wonderland, with Alice playing the - perhaps - central figure in a rebellion fomented by the Mad Hatter.
Surprisingly - to me, at least - the source material hasn’t taken the horrible battering that I expected. The characters are taken in new and unexpected directions and given their own motivations and purposes. Die-hard fans of the source material will undoubtedly shutter at this, for the characters in the novel were charming precisely for their lack of these traits; such is the conflict I mentioned in the first paragraph, and such is the nature of the beast.
The Mad Hatter has undergone a surprising amount of alteration from the babbling madman of the novel to the angry - yet, still quite mad - anti red-queen upstart of the movie. No longer is he content to sit perpetually at the tea-table spouting riddles with the March Hare and the Dormouse - he’s now become a political figure, hell bent on deposing a tyrannical ruler.
Alice has had some similar tailoring to move from the innocent and clever young girl of the novel to the willful heroine of the film. I’ll admit, the change suits her. Young women could do worse than a tough-as-nails, sword-toting Alice as a character with whom they can identify. My only complaint is that I was caught completely off-guard by this development. I’ve thought about it long and hard, and rubbed my eyes to no avail; no matter how long I look, I still see what could possibly be a positive female lead character in a Disney movie without a love-interest or prince in sight. (I’m still waiting for Ashton Kucher to pop out, tell me I’m being punk’d, and toss salt in my eyes - it hasn’t happened yet.)
As far as the film’s environments, Wonderland is well realized through a hearty dose of computer generated imagery. When it comes to things of this nature, all I ask is that CGI isn’t used as a spackle to cover plot holes; this film meets that criteria. Could the effects have been more subtle? Certainly. But the source material was anything but subtle, and as such, I can hardly disagree with the amount of effects. They successfully create a Wonderland with depth and *gasp* a bit of grit. I’ll leave it at that.
As I mentioned in my introduction, I think this is a movie that has a hard road ahead. Many purists won’t find it “Carroll” enough, and many cynical reviewers (why are you looking at ME like that?) will probably disparage its heavily made-up appearance. One critic I read actually referred to it as “aggrieved feminist didacticism” which is absolutely hilarious; evidently you can’t have a woman in a movie at all, and expect to not take fire from one angle or another. (Perhaps we can genetically engineer some sexless pod-folk with whom we can populate all movies, to avoid any entanglements? Any ambitious biology majors should drop me a line regarding that - I’ll cut you in for 50%. Maybe more, if you can make the pod-folk taste like chicken.) Undoubtedly, the internet will be awash in a cacophony of angrily struck keyboards for months to come.
In summation, I’ll say the same thing I say for most movies that are adaptations of literature (and this is meant neither as a denial or endorsement of the movie at hand): Make an informed decision - read the book first. After you’ve done that, check out the movie and see how you feel about it. And If you’re already a fan of the original and you aren’t interested in seeing liberties taken with your beloved Carroll canon, stay far, far away.
Turns out Tim Burton would, with the backing of my nemesis from beyond the grave, Walt Disney.
As you’ve probably surmised, Disney isn’t about to put out a movie that would dare displease an audience, so the story has been remolded to conform to a more standard narrative structure. Gone is the nonsense literature of the film’s predecessor; in its place is a story of rebellion and oppression in Wonderland, with Alice playing the - perhaps - central figure in a rebellion fomented by the Mad Hatter.
Surprisingly - to me, at least - the source material hasn’t taken the horrible battering that I expected. The characters are taken in new and unexpected directions and given their own motivations and purposes. Die-hard fans of the source material will undoubtedly shutter at this, for the characters in the novel were charming precisely for their lack of these traits; such is the conflict I mentioned in the first paragraph, and such is the nature of the beast.
The Mad Hatter has undergone a surprising amount of alteration from the babbling madman of the novel to the angry - yet, still quite mad - anti red-queen upstart of the movie. No longer is he content to sit perpetually at the tea-table spouting riddles with the March Hare and the Dormouse - he’s now become a political figure, hell bent on deposing a tyrannical ruler.
Alice has had some similar tailoring to move from the innocent and clever young girl of the novel to the willful heroine of the film. I’ll admit, the change suits her. Young women could do worse than a tough-as-nails, sword-toting Alice as a character with whom they can identify. My only complaint is that I was caught completely off-guard by this development. I’ve thought about it long and hard, and rubbed my eyes to no avail; no matter how long I look, I still see what could possibly be a positive female lead character in a Disney movie without a love-interest or prince in sight. (I’m still waiting for Ashton Kucher to pop out, tell me I’m being punk’d, and toss salt in my eyes - it hasn’t happened yet.)
As far as the film’s environments, Wonderland is well realized through a hearty dose of computer generated imagery. When it comes to things of this nature, all I ask is that CGI isn’t used as a spackle to cover plot holes; this film meets that criteria. Could the effects have been more subtle? Certainly. But the source material was anything but subtle, and as such, I can hardly disagree with the amount of effects. They successfully create a Wonderland with depth and *gasp* a bit of grit. I’ll leave it at that.
As I mentioned in my introduction, I think this is a movie that has a hard road ahead. Many purists won’t find it “Carroll” enough, and many cynical reviewers (why are you looking at ME like that?) will probably disparage its heavily made-up appearance. One critic I read actually referred to it as “aggrieved feminist didacticism” which is absolutely hilarious; evidently you can’t have a woman in a movie at all, and expect to not take fire from one angle or another. (Perhaps we can genetically engineer some sexless pod-folk with whom we can populate all movies, to avoid any entanglements? Any ambitious biology majors should drop me a line regarding that - I’ll cut you in for 50%. Maybe more, if you can make the pod-folk taste like chicken.) Undoubtedly, the internet will be awash in a cacophony of angrily struck keyboards for months to come.
In summation, I’ll say the same thing I say for most movies that are adaptations of literature (and this is meant neither as a denial or endorsement of the movie at hand): Make an informed decision - read the book first. After you’ve done that, check out the movie and see how you feel about it. And If you’re already a fan of the original and you aren’t interested in seeing liberties taken with your beloved Carroll canon, stay far, far away.