Apparently Alice got it wrong. She never went to Wonderland at all. She misheard the name of the place which was really called Underland, on account of being down a rabbit hole. It may give Lewis Carroll purists a case of the vapours. Not to mention confuse thousands of young readers, but that’s just one of the changes to one of the world’s best loved tales in this part adaptation/part sequel from Tim Burton, returning to offbeat family fantasy fare after Sweeney Todd.
Viewers will certainly recognize story elements from Carroll’s classic Alice In Wonderland and Alice Through The Looking Glass, but this version gives the characters names, so that the White Rabbit is McTwisp, the white Queen is Mirana, and the Caterpillar Absolem while Iracebeth is a combination of The Queen of Hearts and The Red Queen.
As with Hook and Return to Oz, the film involves the central character returning to the place of their great adventure many years later. After an introduction in which young Alice and her father talk about the strange dream she keeps having, the film fast forwards 13 years to her pale but interesting 19 year old self (played by Mia Wasikowska) who, finding herself being proposed to by some aristocratic twit in the middle of huge garden party, excuses herself, runs off after a rabbit with a fob watch and, once more, tumbles down a hole into ‘Wonderland’.
She, of course, doesn’t remember the place and believes it’s just another dream. The characters she meets, White Rabbit (Michael Sheen), a swashbuckling Dormouse (Barbara Windsor) and short, argumentative rotund twins Tweedledum and Tweedledee (Matt Lucas), reckon she’s the ‘wrong Alice’ anyway, while Absolem (Alan Rickman sounding like Prof Snape) declares her ‘hardly Alice’.
The only one who believes she’s the same girl is The Mad Hatter (an inspired Johnny Depp, who was Willie Wonka in Burton’s Charlie And The Chocolate Factory), but, with a fuzzy cloud of red hair, green saucer eyes and a tendency to mood swings and sudden slips into a Scottish accent, he’s, well, mad.
There again, things have changed greatly and Wonderland has become a desolate decaying wasteland since she was last here. Having seized the crown and exiled her pacifist White Queen sister (Anne Hathaway), the spiteful Red Queen (a literally big-headed Helena Bonham Carter) rules like a tyrant, chopping off heads and keeping everyone terrified with her metallic playing cards soldiers, the fierce Bandersnatch and the terrifying Jabberwock (Christopher Lee).
The reason everyone’s excited that Alice may have returned is the prophecy showing her freeing the land by slaying the Jabberwock with the Vorpal Sword. Alice, however, declares she couldn’t slay anything and is having none of it. Naturally, everyone who’s seen the Narnia films or The Golden Compass, will know it inevitably ends in a battle.
So, although Carroll wrote the story without any moral lesson, Burton’s film preaches female self-empowerment (getting her ‘muchness’ back, as Hatter would say) , finding your true self and following your destiny. And, bizarrely, an epilogue about venture capitalism!
Not that youngsters should worry their heads about all that. They’ll be too busy marveling at the eye-popping visuals, the stunning 3D and fabulous CGI animation that makes Avatar look tawdry
When Alice first arrives there’s a lot of drink me/eat me shrinking and growing, and throughout the film all the ‘human’ characters are, like the elongated Jack of Knaves (a creepy Crispin Glover), somehow distorted. It’s an odd effect that adds to the feel that things are getting ‘curiouser and curiouser’.
It’s an amazing work of the imagination, full of memorable characters and performances with Stephen Fry the evaporating Cheshire Cat and Timothy Spall perfectly cast as the voice of the bloodhound.
Depp is superb as the Hatter and, as well as giving a perfect demonstration of Fudderwacking, brings a real note of poignancy to his relationships with sanity and Alice alike while Bonham Carter has a great pantomime villain scene stealing time, even if Black Adder fans may feel a major case of déjà vu!
It is thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining. However, while frequently very funny, there’s times when it might be a little too dark, creepy and scary for some. When Alice gets to the Red Queen’s palace, for example, she has to cross a moat using stepping stones that are actually all the floating heads that have been chopped off! On the other hand, given the enduring popularity of Carroll’s very weird and wonderful books, maybe that’s exactly why kids will love it!
BBFC Guidance: Contains moderate fantasy violence
Lets Go With The Children rating: recommended for 8+
By Mike Davies |