As expected, Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter commands the screen. He's half Pierrot, the sad clown, and the other the moody Captain Nemo. Our heroine is spunky, determined, and constantly a bit bewildered by all she sees- just like the viewers in our theater. Mia Wasikowska fits this role perfectly.
This Burton film is whimsy for a new generation- one jaded and cynical by life's realities with tiny shreds of good humor, little lightness, and a small glimmer of hope.
I saw Alice in Wonderland, and I found it to be far from wonderful, just a garbled mess of all three books, missing their content entirely, what happened to all the mystery and riddles Lewis Carrol made for us? The Mad Hatter is not supposed to be a main character, not supposed to be sympathetic. He could have just been in a cameo and the audience would've loved it. The dance he does at the end was Burton dancing on Carrol's grave. Disney's original animated masterpiece is the truer version of the story, not this. All the characters dialouge is just them arguing is she's the real Alice, which gets quite tiresome. Burton is not a storyteller, he's a showman, he should stick to production design, because let's face it, he hasn't made a good movie in a while. Terry Gilliam is the true storyteller and master of originality, not Burton, which is a grave mistake in audiences nowadays. Plus people keep thinking he's the director of Nightmare Before Christmas.
ReplyDeleteI can't tell by your post whether you liked it or not Mark.
ReplyDeleteRegarding your previous post on this film, is it wrong of me to feel slightly vindicated that while it had a few phenomenal weeks at the box office the reviews are generally medium to negative? Just because people rush to see it right away does not mean that they will enjoy what they see.
Good catch, Kevin. I too was mistaken regarding Nightmare.
ReplyDeleteEric, I thought the film was good in a B minus sort of way. Certainly not great nor worthy of a repeat. But it was better than I thought it would be!
Alice in Wonderland is now pass the 500 million mark and is on its way of being one of Disney's top grossing film of all time. With these numbers it is only a short time until we see Wonderland in either the new Fantasyland redo or in the Hollywood Studios park. When you have this many people crazy about this film - Disney will bring it to the parks. My family is going to see it again this weekend - but this time we are going to the I-MAX version. Most of my art students have already seen it and loved it. We are having a Wonderland theme for the kids prom this year - should be fun. I wonder how much money Disney is making off all the merchandise from places like Hot Topic - seems like all the kids at our school either are wearing Mad Hatter or Chester Cat shirts - I've seen a few Alice ones. It's been awhile since Disney has been on top of the box office - we as Disney fans should all celebrate and be proud of all the records Alice is making.
ReplyDeleteAll those special events sound like great fun, Tim!
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