I saw Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, in old fashioned 2D, this weekend. Tim Burton is undeniably creative in his approach to visuals. The deep colors, Suessical shapes, and general grandness of scale are all great fun to watch. However, and it pains me to say so, the story was abused and left a disappointingly silly remnant. Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter was a recycled Willy Wonka with tones of Edward Sissorhands. Ok Johnny, we get it, you are “wacky in an intellectually superior way”….can we move on? Can we hear another song or is that all you have in your repertoire these days? It would have been so great if the Mad Hatter had been morose and sarcastic. In fact, I think Gary Oldman would have been a better Mad Hatter and leave Depp to be the caterpillar. Before you think I am a total AiW hater, I enjoyed Helena Bonham Carter’s Red Queen. She can be crazy and quiet at the same time and that’s just downright creepy. This isn’t the outlandish crazy of Mrs. Lovett and not the depression of Marla, this was a whole new crazy and that was fun to watch. Ann Hattaway was just annoyingly flakey, period.
End result, the movie is pretty but shallow.
