In the Theatre with Kevin Murphy - Alice in Wonderland - Walt Disney Pitcures

Guess what everyone watching grass grow is actually more fun than you think especially if you've seen Walt Disney's live action remake of the classic Alice in Wonderland. I'll let it out now I never liked Alice in Wonderland in any of its variations I found it to be slow, moody and just plain boring. Although their was one thing I did like from it.

Alice (Mia Wasikowska) who is being pressured into a marriage tries to avoid her idiotic fiance and looses her way as she enters Wonderland which is now in the clutches of the evil Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) but is granted help by the locals such as the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) to defeat the queen who according to them is the Alice that will kill the Queens most deadly lightning breathing beast and restore the right of ruler to the White Queen (Anne Hathaway).

I didn't think this movie lives up too much. As I said before the story is boring (from my point of view). I know I have people out there that will say otherwise but the reason I think its boring is because of the background and the texture of the film, pretty much every part of it is broken down and the look of many of the CG characters such as the bloodhound, the twins and the flowers is very mouldy and can easily make you fall asleep along with the background even if its from the imagination of a 19 year old girl.

Tim Burton used to be one of my favourite directors such because of his creative approaches to films like Batman (1989), Edward Scissorhands (1990) and my personal favourite Beettlejuice (1988) but now he seems to be losing his creative spark due to the fact that the movie business is changing too fast and Burton doesn't like it, meaning he has to reluctantly play along and do things their way. And if it means doing things Hollywoods way than it means all Burton will be able to do is remakes and although they still have a bit of his original flare they seem to lack any originality. Alice in Wonderland is really nothing more than the animated film put in live action and having all the beauty of hand drawn animation sucked right out of it just so Hollywood can think of easy idea's to make easy money. I just hope one day Burton will realize this and go back to his drawing board.

However one thing I did like was the performance by Johnny Depp who I think was brilliant as the Mad Hatter because the character has a unique way of thinking that a cardboard actor would have a difficult time portraying on camera but giving that type of role to someone like Johnny Depp would mean ideas would just come to the director and the character is nailed perfectly. I also enjoyed the acting by Alan Rickman as the caterpillar who as a figure of wisdom is able to help Alice through her quest. Alice on the other hand I found to be unbelievably boring, she hardly says anything interesting that would keep me in the mood and that the character needed to be given deeper emotion such as in the animated adaption. The rest of the cast I thought was alright but weren't as good as Depp or Rickman.

Is this a good movie.... no. It really is nothing more than Hollywood trying to make some extra money by ripping off a classic (that I wasn't really fond of) and by wasting the good time and skills off many talented actors in this bad knockoff of a classic children s story.


My Rating 1/4 Shamrocks