Review of Alice in Wonderland (2010) by Dillinger P — 25 Feb 2014

What a monumental failure of a film. It's dull, feels longer than it is and is just out right aggrivating from the start. Most people I presume are aware of the original story by Lewis Carrol. Burton does try to hold true to it, but Burton has lost his way so badly over the previous years he leaves us with a CGI mess that is very hard to like or relate to.

After being forced into a marriage preposal thats not for her the innocent and "Crazy" Alice runs off and finds herself in a magical world called wonderland. A place where the Red Queen, played by Carter, runs the land which is a shadow of its former self.

Alice must travel through this CGI mess and with a little help from some friends slay the Jabberwoky on behalf of the White queen, played by Hathaway. It's an eyesore, the majority of everything you see is in CGI, ok some of it is ok but it lacks so much life and enviroment that you care not one bit for Wonderland, in fact its wonderless.

The acting talent is monumental but even the biggest of the actors struggle greatly to get the clunky dialogue out. Depp, Wasikowska, Glover and Hathaway do the best they can with some wild and engaging characters but its not enough to save this lifeless and by the numbers film.

Carter is predictably Carter and that for fans will no doubt delight, however for me the whole Carter/Burton show is falling thin and fast. The guest voices of Rickman, Lee and Fry are also welcome but are used so sparingly that they can only offer up glimpses of fun.

The whole affair is a CGI mess, ill give it that a few scenes are set up quite nicely but who cares, they are so far apart that when they do show up its like, oh wow, ok is this going to end soon. And jesus does this drag! It just goes on and on and on, being as predictable and as cheesey as it can be.

Depp tries so hard to give a wild performance but he is the only thing speeding up proceedings, yet again hes used sparingly. Burton needs to go and have a think about what hes doing, who knows, back track, side step, stop playing it safe? For anyone expecting a gloriously demented and dark twisted tale its not here.

For anyone expecting wild and imaginitive visuals, their not here. For anyone looking for fun? thats not here either. Total car crash of a movie that none of the talent can save.