February 6, 2011: Alice in Wonderland
The combination of Disney and Tim Burton seems to result in something tremendous to look at, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. With his usual muses Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter on board, Burton gives us his odd take on the Lewis Carroll story, a warped interpretation of Wonderland and its inhabitants, with a story driven by a strong and simple moral. I wouldn’t have bothered with this if not for the Oscar nominations for art direction, costumes, and visual effects, and I can’t say that I feel that viewing this film was time well spent.
At first, I wasn’t even convinced that the visual effects were even all that great, with the strange physics accompanying Alice’s fall down the rabbit hole, but the effects improved significantly after that and were well worth the nomination, with live-action and CGI elements mixed together throughout the film. The costumes represent a typical Burton-esque take on Carter’s Red Queen and her minions as well as Anne Hathaway’s creepy and perhaps miscast White Queen. The weird cast of supporting characters includes Alan Rickman and Crispin Glover in appropriate roles, but their tone only added to my wondering what the intended audience was for the film. It didn’t seem to be geared towards kids, but at the same time it wasn’t oriented to the adult perspective either. This was OK entertainment but I really didn’t care.
Throwaway entry with artistic Oscar nominations.
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