Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland is the story of a charming girl, in a not-so-charming world.


Synopsis:
A young woman is about to be engaged when she stumbles upon a magical world she has unknowingly visited before. The inhabitants look to her for help against a tyrannical queen who has caused much suffering since they last saw her. The young woman struggles to find her inner strength to do the right thing; for them, and herself.


Review:
(Contains SPOILERS but, trust me, the outcome of the movie is never, for one moment, in doubt)


Now, Alice may not be charming in the normal sense, but I dig contrary and quirky girls with British accents. So, that was in the film's favor but, as we followed charming Alice down the rabbit hole, and through her rather traditional adventure, I found myself increasingly bored with the technicolor wasteland she was shrinking and growing all over.


"Why," you ask?


Well, let's start at the beginning. A 19 year old Alice, after a short flashback to her youth, and reassurance of the value of madness by her father (The 6 year old Alice asks her father if she is mad upon waking from a "dream" of Wonderland), rides to her surprise engagement party with her widowed mother. It's very quickly established that Alice is a woman ahead of her time... A rebel, Dotty, a loner. So, now that that was out of the way, what horrors would our modern woman in draconian times be subjected to? Well, her future betrothed is a vulturously hook-nosed, gruesome face-making, boor. I felt like I was being beaten with the obvious hammer. OK Tim Burton... Thanks for so subtly showing us that this was not the right guy for our spunky Alice.


Just before the magical proposal, Alice is dragged off, by her future mother-in-law, to be schooled on the fineries of her not-so-beloved's weak digestive system. Wow, this guy really sucks. Poor Alice! But, wait! The white rabbit appears and Alice is soon running off, to ultimately answer the question... "Will I marry this rich douche-bag?"


So, I felt like, to this point, I was being treated like an idiot. I was smacked across the face with Alice's undesirable circumstances... hard. How was it even a question when this guy was so horrendous, and Alice was so clearly an independent woman? Just say "NO." The end. Thanks for your 10 bucks.


But, there was another 80-some minutes to go, for those of us who need a really drawn out, charmless, adventure so we can watch Alice build up enough courage to say "NO." Now, there really are no spoilers here, because nothing is ever really in question. We're on a ride, on rails, that we've all been of before... no surprises here. Trust me.


Alice falls down the hole, goes through the same crap she did the first time, with the "drink me," "eat me," rigmarole. After-all, she's forgotten it all and it happens just the same. So, about that... the stuff repeated from the books, while trying to pawn the whole enterprise off as a new adventure; They have to squeeze some clever ideas into the film somewhere, because when your big, new, idea involves someone in armor, slaying a dragon, with a magical sword, you're probably not coming up with any on your own.


Alice in Wonderland is full of all kinds of distracting STUFF. And, it's all in the service of hiding the totally boring, and unoriginal, slay the dragon, be your own man/woman, paint by numbers film. Bright colors. Ugly creatures. Mean people. Nice people. Crazy people. As much weird stuff as possible. It's like a grocery list. You look at it and check stuff off... then throw it out. That's the problem with this movie and, honestly, the way I feel about most of Tim Burton's stuff. He throws a bunch of grotesque, shiny, baubles at you to distract you from the fact that there's not really much going on... no story, no charm, nothing that keeps you from squirming a bit in your seat, and thinking about what you need to do when you get home.


I found myself watching, not engaging, as Alice ran around, denied her destiny, inexplicably latched on to a freakishly unappealing Mad Hatter, in record time, and just fumbled on down the road to some pre-destiny that, since we knew it was going to happen anyway, kind of made the less than special journey to get to that pre-destiny, even less, um, special...er. So, she slays the dragon, says "no" to the guy, and there was never really any doubt from minute one. Yawn.


OK, I have to stop. But, a quick recap. Alice in Wonderland, is a poorly written, run-of-the-mill, story, wrapped up in a lot of empty color and noise. The characters, for the most part, are unappealing, and the art direction stages them in a charmless world. Add all that up and you've got a movie that's not all that fun to watch and doesn't deliver on a message that makes that lack of fun lead to some greater understanding of the world. Just say "NO."