Review of Alice in Wonderland (2010) by Tyler M — 03 May 2013

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland is scattered and has a thin plot and unimpressive script, but it is largely a fun venture due to its colour, characters and astounding art direction.

As a visual experience, Alice in Wonderland was unforgettable as the entire story was rich with the colour and diverse characters of a true faith tale, and along with the incredible visual effects, makeup and costumes, Alice in Wonderland had tons of fun intentions which it successfully shared with the audience so that they could feel the colourful joy intended from the original story Alice in Wonderland, so Tim Burton's directional skill shows off here.

Also, the colourful bunch of characters are matched with a talented cast and voice group, and so its one of the main benefits if the film.

Mia Wasikowska makes a decent breakthrough in the role of Alice, and although monotonous at times she consistently has determination in her to prove herself which is just what her character really needs, so Mia Wasikowska pretty much gets her role done right on the money.

Johnny Depp is the most common one you'd hear about when people talk about Alice in Wonderland, and although I found myself expecting more from the man who played Jack Sparrow and Sweeney Todd and that his character was rather one dimensional, Johnny Depp was still good as the mad hatter.

Helena Bonham Carter was interesting in her characterisation because she turned a short big headed woman in a red dress into an intimidating and surprisingly dark character for one of a kids movie, and her voice was enough to shatter the innocence of a frog's eyes, and so she was good.

And it's interesting to see Crispin Clover up and acting again and he was surprisingly convincing and handsome as Ilosovic Stayne, the Knave of Hearts and he reminded me of Mel Gibson's performance as Sir William Wallace in the Best Picture Oscar-Winning masterpiece Braveheart, and yet it was all unbelievable that Tim Burton decided to cast Crispin Glover, the man whose legacy is sourced from his performance in the 1985 science fiction comedy Back to the Future. It was a flood of nostalgia to see him in, and his performance was surprisingly good.

Also, Anne Hathaway rediscovers her Disney roots in a role not deeply familiar with the standards of her recent films and she becomes a very charming and gorgeous princess like Glenda the Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz or more recently Oz: The Great and Powerful, but she becomes more focused on the physical characteristics and constantly has her hands held up as if to show them off, and it really works for her.

I also enjoyed the voice of Alan Rickman as a shisha puffing blue Caterpillar.

But the standout role was the fact that Matt Lucas was hilarious as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb, and since I've trailed his work since I was merely a young boy laughing at Penis jokes in Little Britain, seeing him up and at it again is great for me and this time in conflict with himself as another identical character, and their or his chemistry was impeccable. I laughed at him many times throughout Alice in Wonderland.

However, the film is still ripe with negatives.

Primarily, it's because the plot is fairly thin and so the wacky characters and astounding visuals are milked for all their possible entertainment and to disguise the thinning plot and over-simplicity of the dynamics, but I was all to wary of them.

Mainly, the climactic battle scene in which The Res Queen's army faces off with The White Queen's, the story shifts focus onto Alice battling the Jabberwocky and rarely comes back for the audience to witness two armies fighting and so the balance in this scene in unimpressive.

Also, the script was unimpressive and didn't assist any of the actors to characterise their characters and so it seemed they rather all got similar lines of little creativity and just dealt with it is they saw fit, and since it wasn't always great it really displayed Tim Burton's style-over-substance approach in Alice in.

Wonderland. And although it shouldn't prevent you from enjoying Alice in Wonderland, they're just criticisms that I found underneath the gloss and glam of this film. Still, it was colourful and fun to watch, so I'd surely recommend it.