Review 742: Alice in Wonderland (2010)

 

Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is a visual delight, a vibrant and dazzling work  that brings to life the works of Lewis Carol in

The film acts as a quasi sequel to the original animated classic, Alice (Mia Wasikowska), now 19 years old, returns to the whimsical world of Underland that she first entered as a child and embarks on a journey to discover her true destiny and slay the Jabberwocky

Penned with some surprising nuance and smart  by Linda Woolverton (Disney’s animated features Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King), Alice in Wonderland toes a very fine line between an adaptation and a retelling   Of course, this is nothing new to the fantasy genre or Disney, but somehow I wanted to know what would happen next. It's a fantsy film merged with a coming of age story for Alice to explore the nature of dreams.  In any other movie, I might've been board but you know what? I actually cared.

the cinematography is beautiful; capturing the beauty and  of Victoria and the the score by Danny Elfman is   the costumes are lavish with a lot of emphasis on blue

Mia Wasikowska  She looks at the world in an interesting and unique way, maybe different to what society sees. She stands apart from the societal expectations of Victorian times   As her father told her when she was little girl "You are entirely bonkers. But I will tell you a secret...  all the best people are mad." Her greif for the death of her father unlocks her awkwardness and uncomfortableness for the society that she lives in   She's on the cusp of being a child and a woman

The Mad Hatter  certainly fits right into Johnny Depp's wheelhouse.

The lovely Anne Hathaway doesn't lag far behind playing the White Queen. She's only has  of screentime but they are very memorable and she brings a warm

Throughout the film she's surrounded by a group of colourful and eclectic supporting characters and creatures that bring out the strange and weirdness of Wonderland played by a well oiled ensamble of stage and screen actors. Let me recite a list for those who know their actors and the characters from the Lewis Carol original book: The White Rabbit (Michael Sheen), Absolem the Caterpillar (Alan Rickman), The Cheschire Cat (Stephen Fry), The Dormouse (Barbara Windsor from EastEnders), the Puppy reimagined as a Bloodhound (Timothy Spall), The March Hare (Paul Whitehouse), The Dodo (Michael Gough), The Talking Flowers (Imelda Staunton). Rather awesome. All of them elevate their relatively minor and supporting roles to memorable  

However it's Helena Bonham Carter that steals the show as Iracebeth/Red Queen, playing her as a spoiled todler in a tyrants body making for a hateable but also highly entertaining villain. 

Lindsey Duncan, Tim Pigott-Smith, Geraldine James and Frances de la Tour round out the films large eclectic cast with  playing the people connected to Alice in the