As a relative n00b to the “Alice In Wonderland” universe, I had little to no expectations for the latest film from Tim Burton (not a huge fan but “Big Fish” was AMAZING!). Never read the books, never seen the movies and barely knew the characters. But the day before I saw this film, I watched the classic Disney animated film for the first time (The closest I had ever been to watching the film was Pogo’s remix song) and it did kinda put me in the proper state of mind because apparently because I ended up liking the film more than I thought I would. Like, a lot more.
Well, mostly what I liked was the way they navigated the story from the original and made it work in a way that didn’t seem to forced. I’m interested to see how willing fanboys & fangirls are going to accept this aspect of the film but for me, it worked very well. There were a few things that seemed to not have been explained (Umm, wasn’t the Mad Hatter and old man in the original and now he’s played by Johnny Depp? In a penultimate scene, things got a little creepy as I reached back) but it was nothing that I couldn’t get over. The acting from Depp was typical: not amazing but still always standing out when on screen. The one stand out performance was Helen Bonham Carter as the Red Queen, not over the top and she channeled the character just right. I’m told that a fan favorite for fans is Cheshire Cat and I have to say, I feel in love with this dude. Voiced by Stephen Fry, he did an excellent job and am now considering getting the character tattooed on my back this summer.
The screening I attended was in 3D and uses a different system for the experience thatn the one for “Avatar.” Perhaps it was the fact that this film was converted to 3D in post and not shot from the very beginning with the idea but as usual the effect was very much a distraction and added not a single thing and actually ended up detracting from all the beautiful imagery the artists created for Wonderland. This post-filming 3D needs to stop! The lenses on the glasses also seemed very much smaller thatn the ones used for “Avatar” and hence gave you a limited area to view out of before you saw the thicknes of the glasses creeping into your line of sight. A shame, really. I suggest you watch the film in 2D unless you absolutely need to see the film in 3D.
Like I said, the film really surprised me and really made me want to go back and read the books and dive further into the universe created by Lewis Carrol. But like I mentioned, I’m new to all of this but hopefully the hardcore fan base won’t be disappointed in Tim Burton’s latest film. And be sure to keep an eye out for the “Tron Legacy” trailer which will be attached to prints of this film this weekend. That would be the only reason I’d have to ever see this film again in 3D.
I felt the movie was meh. I had high hopes for Burton, but he failed to make the material (which is already amazing) exciting.
But I agree about the 3D; it was distracting and took away from the visuals entirely.
talk about a grin from ear to ear. :)