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 (031110) As witnessed throughout much of his filmography, Tim
Burton has the uncanny ability to reach astonishingly dark moods while still
maintaining a jovial atmosphere worthy of his riotous imagination. Occasionally,
the shadows get the best of him. Much like “Batman Returns” and “Mars Attacks,”
“Alice in Wonderland” is a Burton vehicle with four flat tires, attempting to
pull off a tricky juggling act of whimsy and violence, using author Lewis
Carroll’s legendary novel as a playground for the blandest of fantasy visions.
It’s a drab feature film molded with garish CGI and acted as if there wasn’t a
director on set at all. It’s far from deplorable, but it does represent the
filmmaker at his most persistently ineffective.
At the moment of a marriage proposal from a man of unpleasant gastrointestinal
potential, Alice (Mia Wasikowska) decides to chase after the White Rabbit,
falling back into Underland, a world she once visited in her youth. Now ruled
with a beheading fury by the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter), Underland is
falling apart, waiting for Alice to return and fulfill a prophecy that has the
dainty girl slaying the monstrous Jabberwocky. Stunned by her surroundings,
Alice is helped along by pal Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), who pushes the heroine to
rescue the White Queen (Anne Hathaway) and restore balance to the land. With the
villainous Stayne (Crispin Glover) on the hunt, Alice needs all the Underland
help she can find, including the mischievous Cheshire Cat (voiced by Stephen
Fry) and the stoic Blue Caterpillar (Alan Rickman).
The title reads “Alice in Wonderland,” but a more accurate reflection of content
would be “Alice Has Already Been to Wonderland.” This “Alice” adventure is
conceived as more of a sequel, treading where “Return to Oz” and “Hook” already
splashed up a storm. It’s an effort to be clever, to restore an element of
surprise to a tale that’s been reworked a hundred different ways. Criminally,
screenwriter Linda Woolverton (Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast”) allows the
potential of a majestic “Alice” reawakening to slip through her fingers, instead
staging a big-budget retread of events from the initial Underland visit under
the guise of Alice’s amnesia (even the talking animals are surprised to see
their savior repeating herself). Granted, the new version shows a surprising
amount of teeth at times to keep up with Carroll, but the eat me/drink me déjà
vu holds no charm or purpose other than to show off a flashy round of
unconvincing green screen effects (exaggerated poorly in the film’s stale 3-D
presentation).
While handling a literary classic with loving hands, Burton slips plenty of his
affected madness into “Alice in Wonderland,” channeling most of his vision into
the Underland flora and the design of the characters, who all receive
extravagantly bulbous, angular make-up and CG embellishment. Burton’s eye for
odd is affectionate, but retains a cold touch; it’s almost a parody of a Tim
Burton film at times, especially in the execution of the Red Queen, who’s
depicted as a massive screeching head on top of a wisp of a woman. “Alice in
Wonderland” is begging to be inhaled as a fantasia of creatures and
fantasylands, but the lack of practical craftsmanship leaves the film unbearably
plastic and soulless, a fact underlined by the humorless, dour script, which
seems to view joy as the enemy.
The film’s violent too, with three instances of ocular trauma and, expectedly, a
fixation on severed heads. Perhaps this would’ve pleased Carroll, but in a Tim
Burton film, the aggression feels about as welcome as tax audit. Call it “Batman
Returns-itis,” where the combless maestro wants to indulge his itch for
nightmarish imagery while still hoping to delight family audiences. The script
already deals with sorrowful themes of madness and dreamscape interpretation,
which makes the blunt instances of disfigurement stand out even further.
The actors are lost in the artificial haze with “Alice in Wonderland,” trying to
mold characterizations in the midst of a full-throated CG assault. Wasikowska
looks the part, and is, in many ways, the best thing about the film. But the
script makes her merely blonde wallpaper, popping in and out of the story only
when needed. Obviously Depp has the showier role as the Mad Hatter, but the
actor does persist in annoying the audience with a wild orange appearance and a
wavering accent (Scottish and English) to play up the starry-eyed duality of the
character. He’s grandstanding with Burton’s approval, who also prods real-life
partner Carter to belch regally as the bellowing queen. Never again will you
ever want to hear the phrase “off with his head” uttered again. Better is
Hathaway as the flighty White Queen, and Fry is perfectly cast as the wily
Cheshire Cat. There’s not a soul in the ensemble that’s able to break the dreary
spell suffocating the film, but it's Depp who has long since since overstayed
his welcome with these types of flouncy characters, here busting out a
last-minute hip-hop dance routine as a way to provide Alice with her
pre-digested girl power means of rebellion. Now there’s an inappropriate scene
if there ever was one.
“Alice in Wonderland” doesn’t accomplish much during its time onscreen,
concluding with a chess board rumble of surprisingly little consequence. The
film’s bleak and exhausted, which doesn’t encourage the most jubilant of
Underland moods. Attempting to burrow into the core of Carroll’s psychosis,
Burton wildly overplays his hand, searching for a way to engage younger
audiences with an array of anthropomorphic animals and iconic plotting and still
plunder potent psychological depths. Burton’s turned “Alice in Wonderland” into
a silver screen suicide note, once again mistaking an extended stay in hostility
as a directorial statement of integrity.
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