Thursday, Mar. 11, 2010

THE MOVIE Guy’s REVIEW: Alice in Wonderland: A little crazy never hurts

Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland celebrates playful craziness. Tim Burton, who directed this new plunge down the rabbit hole, embraces this remake until it wraps around and comes out on the other side.

The basics — Alice (Mia Wasikowska) is a young woman who is trying to find her place in English high society. She’s set to marry a lord, but is not enthusiastic about it. She bucks all the fashionable conventions for ladies. She says things, asks questions and makes observations considered odd for polite company. No one is sure what to make of her. At the engagement party, she sees the white rabbit she first encountered as a young girl dashing about the topiaries. She follows and plunges down the rabbit hole and finds herself … in Wonderland, a place she’d been before. Apparently, the citizens of Wonderland have been expecting her. It’s an important day for Wonderland — one that has been prophesized. Some citizens of Wonderland, through their giddy everyday madness, have noticed her absence. Some, like Johnny Depp’s character, the Mad Hatter, have actually missed her. So, big things are expected of our girl.

Wonderland is quite literal. Alice can be as big as she wants and the mad inhabitants expect her to play a key role in a revolution. But can the mad really know what they want and understand what that means in the long run? In a land of freewheeling individuals, are they ready to build a new society?

I’m not a huge Tim Burton fan. I like his imagination and aesthetics, to a point. When he is married with the right material and shows the proper dosage, cinematic magic can occur. Alice in Wonderland straddles that line between madness and sanity. It’s on that line where Burton is at his best and greatness can be found.

I didn’t go to the movie with a lot of expectations, and I must admit, I quite enjoyed this nutty little trip. It is whimsical, beautiful and presented with just a touch of melancholy, especially at the end, when many of the inhabitants of Wonderland seem to have a moment of clarity.

Excellent touch, excellent movie and I recommend it.