Capaha Arrow

Issue date: 3/11/10 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Johnny Depp (the Mad Hatter) and Helena Bonham Carter (the Red Queen) collaborate on another movie together in Tim Burton's remake of "Alice in Wonderland"

Remakes and sequels are two staples of the film industry. They are usually big moneymakers, and sometimes are better than the original. Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" is both a remake and a sequel, if you can believe it. It probably made a lot of money as well, because all the shows were sold out except for one. But is it better than the original?

No. This movie was complete garbage, and sucked up a whole evening in which I could be watching much better movies.

The story starts off boring enough, with old guys talking about business deals. Because that's what you think of when you think of "Alice in Wonderland." Then little Alice comes in and says she has a nightmare where she falls down a rabbit hole and meets a bunch of weird characters. Her dad tucks her back into bed and says, "Next time you have a nightmare, pinch yourself and you'll wake up." I tried pinching myself, but my nightmare was real; I had to watch the rest of the movie. Cut to 13 years later, where Alice's dad is dead due to bad writing. The movie shows how bored and miserable she is in normal life, and then she falls down the rabbit hole, again. I guess the constant nightmares and post-traumatic stress weren't enough of a deterrent for her.

As the story stumbles along on, "Alice in Wonderland" keeps throwing things at the audience that are completely ignored later on, and the movie doesn't even try to explain anything that happens. For example, in one scene the Mad Hatter comments that Cheshire Cat is only good at looking out for himself, but no explanation is given and the subject is never brought up again. Later the cat is shown sticking his neck out for the Hatter, making that conversation pointless. Another irritating thing is the made up words everyone uses, such as Bandersnatch and Frabjous day. These words are never explained, nor does Alice ask what they mean. They may have been used to emphasize the fact that this was a different world, but I'm pretty sure the talking animals do a good enough job of that. Most irritating is how Alice keeps saying she is dreaming, even though she pinches herself and doesn't wake up. The movie spends too much time on this; she should have realized that it was real when she pinched herself and remained in Wonderland.

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools