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March 08, 2010
Alice In Babyland
Once more into the breech... well... maybe breech is a bad choice to describe going into a theater full of babies and baby mamas.
I didn't see Alice in Wonderland earlier because I haven't been able to find a single person left at Disney publicity who might be responsible for me and I am tired of trying... at least until April.
I never like seeing a movie after it's been kicked around. And I have been surprised by the wide range of people who haven't liked this film. (And opening weekend box office still has nothing to do with the quality of the movie itself.)
So I went in, hoping to be a contrarian... which is to say, I wanted to see a film I liked.
No such luck.
If Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland had come out a month earlier, Avatar may have own Best Picture, because few movie experiences will make so plain how much of an achievement Jim Cameron's film was. Both movies have visual superstars at the helm. Both films mix plainly human and CG'd characters. And both films create their environments (save the opening and close of Alice) from scratch.
To be fair, Burton's vision is much more unreal, by design, than Cameron's. Still, Alice seems like a cheap knock-off in comparison, albeit a beautiful one. Animated animals look like cartoons, quite literally. Interaction between CG and humans is lacking smoothness and always feels disconnected.
Alice is exactly what some claimed Avatar was... beautiful images signifying little. It feels like the third film in a series, in terms of storytelling, lazily relying on the audience's familiarity with the characters to overwhelm the sense that we all know the story as well as the filmmakers and there is nothing left for them to say.
I really liked Depp's Mad Hatter. Loved Bonham-Carter's Red Queen. Enjoyed watched the Tweedles every time they were on screen. I enjoyed the idea of Alice as a feminist piece with the nod to learning through reincarnation, as Alice keeps returning to the rabbit hole until the lesson sticks. I loved the detail work, like the frogs in the Red Queen's court and the monkeys and birds being used as furniture. Magnificent.
But the story... so what? For me, the memories of this story, as recreated on film and TV, are a kind of Pogo thing... it's the relationship we build with the characters, not the forward thrusting action of story. Also, Alice is the viewer in most of the other interpretations I have seen. She is our way into having the adventure ourselves. Here, it is like watching someone go through an experience... like we are the White Rabbit or something, not Alice. There was no way in here.
Finally, I think Burton suffered a bit from too many options. Because he was working in a mostly virtual world, he had to show no restraint, except on budget. As such, I felt like he overreached, his imagination bigger than the technology's ability to translate his ideas. Stop-motion animation, which is much more limited in scope, has repeatedly felt like a more complete translation of Burton's voice. As brilliant as that work with Henry Sellick has been, it has boundaries. So did Edward Scissorhands. So did Batman. It's better that way.
Johnny Depp is a much better special effect than anything a computer - at least, in this case - could create. I'd kill for a 3 minute straight dialogue scene between Depp and Bonham-Carter in Alice. They are in scenes together here, but you barely get to have the experience that these two actors can bring.
And there were a lot more babies this time... and they talked and talked and talked... didn't matter.
Too bad.
Posted by dpoland at March 8, 2010 06:01 PM
Comments
As a long-time Burton fanatic, I was actually grateful for reading the pans from Drew and Devin prior to seeing the film. Had I gone in cold, I likely would have been crushed. But, while lowered expectations can sometimes be a benefit (Indiana Jones 4, Quantum of Solace), it was indeed as bad as the harbingers of doom had foretold. But again, I'm grateful than I knew what was coming.
Posted by: Scott Mendelson ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/nav-commenters.gif)
at March 8, 2010 08:03 PM
"Here, it is like watching someone go through an experience... like we are the White Rabbit or something, not Alice. There was no way in here."
It makes me wonder if, at this point in Burton's career, he may want to shift stories away from character-based to context-based. Back in the 80's/90's he was definitely in his element with the wonderful empathy of sharing the same worlds as Peewee, Edward Scissorhands, and even Batman... but now his vision appears to have moved away from those personalized views (Willy Wonka, Alice, Albert Finney in Big Fish etc.) to a broader impersonal experience of the worlds themselves.
That's not necessarily a bad thing - Neil Gaiman is an acclaimed author who never lets you into his lead characters' heads, but instead lets you revel in the context that they operate (which is why Stardust came off rather bizarrely when they tried to open up the actors' roles a bit more). Maybe there is a pairing that would work for both creators.
Posted by: Foamy Squirrel at March 8, 2010 08:11 PM
Color me a contrarian, but I (an avowed Burton disliker) really, really took to this movie and was alternately dazzled and moved by this film. But who am I?
Posted by: Wrecktum at March 8, 2010 08:17 PM
If you recall, a while back I asked if there were any female chosen ones. I think we finally got one in this movie. It's an interesting conceit, but I don't think it works well with this source material, since it alters it so much.
Nor could I figure out what the point of it was, or whose story we were seeing. The prophecy thing was mystifying. Was the prophecy foretold before Alice came the first time or afterwards and that's why they had to get her back? And why her in the first place? Is her destiny tied in any way to Wonderland's? It doesn't seem so, since she leaves in the end. Who is she saving, herself or Wonderland? She realizes herself in the end, but is a cipher most of journey, being too big or too small until at the climax she is just right. And then she goes back again, so she can go to China, presumably an even more mysterious kingdom.
Visually the film is interesting, and it has some nice moments, but the story, oy! Why that story told that way, I still see no justification. Especially since, despite its being a sequel, it more or less recapitulates the original.
Posted by: Blackcloud at March 8, 2010 08:43 PM
Do Mia and Anne grind clam?
Posted by: LexG at March 8, 2010 09:15 PM
do you and yer mates bump tips?
re: 'alice', it thought it was rather dire and yet another example of why retrofitting movies for 3D not designed for the medium is a bad idea
Posted by: leahnz at March 8, 2010 09:30 PM
'i thought it was rather dire', pardon
Posted by: leahnz at March 8, 2010 09:32 PM
Tim Burton=George Lucas for a new generation.
Both are wildly imaginative, inventive filmmakers and storytellers whose creative fetishes tend to go a bit off-the-rails without anything or anyone to reign them in.
Posted by: RedheadedWonder at March 8, 2010 09:41 PM
I didn't love the thing (heard you ran into my wife at the Grove, DP - she says your baby "IS THE CUTEST THING EVER!!" endquote), but I you didn't mention Stephen Fry's Chesire Cat. I have to say, that's now just one of my favorite animated characters in recent memory, an amazing marriage of art and performance.
Posted by: SJRubinstein at March 8, 2010 09:49 PM
wrecktum, you're not the only contrarian. i thought it was weird and wonderful. like most 3d films though, it feels like a movie i only need to see once and then never again. it would probably fall apart on subsequent viewings.
the danger of 3d is turning movie theaters into theme parks. you go in, take a ride, and then go home.
Posted by: anghus at March 9, 2010 05:03 AM
Funny you should talk about theaters into theme parks. I was recently at a demo of this:
Posted by: Wrecktum at March 9, 2010 09:11 AM
wrecktum, thats interesting.
i think the thought process now is to make the theatrical experience more attractive with added bells and whistles. but what happens to the post theatrical market?
take avatar out of the equation. for now its the only example that bucks the trend. make the blockbusters bigger, convert them into 3D. Without the ability to transfer that experience to the home market, will it begin to erode the already suffering dvd market?
does it put all the eggs back into the theatrical basket?
Posted by: anghus at March 10, 2010 03:51 AM
I too had higher expectations for this film that were dashed upon viewing. I saw it at a BAFTA screening and found the 3D to be useless.
And while the plot was simple, the theme seemed contradictory. In the real world, Alice is dealing a predetermined life that she rebels against and yet accepts the predetermination in Wonderland. It felt like Burton wants it both ways.
Helena Bonham-Carter brought a different take to the Red Queen, but felt like there was no inherent power to the character, no real menace. Sure, she chops peoples heads off, but find it hard to believe that anyone would follow her, let alone the Jabberwocky (which is the basis of her power).
It isn't a bad movie. It just isn't a good one either.
Posted by: hendhogan at March 10, 2010 12:01 PM
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