I just got back from seeing Alice in Wonderland and some of you may not like what I have to say.  Gorgeous: absolutely.  Fun: definitely.  Worth seeing: yes.  Great film: well, no.

The film is an adventure quest in the vein of Labyrinth and Never Ending Story.  I watched both of those films countless times as a child and sometimes now when I need to cheer up.  I have no doubt that if I had seen this new Alice in Wonderland as a ten year old I would have been obsessed with it.  But I felt a little too grown up for the black and white (okay red and white) world of good v. evil and the idea that everything would be alright if Alice just believed in herself.  Somehow, making Alice more of a grown up has made the film a bit too juvenile.

Here’s my issue.  Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland is a mastercraft of surreality.  Most film adaptations are unsuccessful because the book is too episodic and thematic.  Burton and crew evaded this problem by creating an adventure plot, but it was too linear.  This is kind of an ironic criticism, but for once a Burton film was not absurd enough.

The level of the film which is most successful is the visuals, no surprise given Burton’s artistic background.  But sometimes the visuals zoom by too quickly while we’re following Alice run from one location to the next.  It’s like scarfing down a hot fudge sundae instead of lingering bite by bite.

Alice was great.  She was absolutely the right actress for the part and I’d love to see more from her in the future. (Did anyone else think she looks Exactly like Gwyneth Paltrow?)

Johnny Depp was not so great.  You should know I love Johnny.  Two of my three favorite films of all time are Johnny vehicles (Pirates otc and Sweeney Todd) and I would probably see him in a two hour movie called man sitting still in chair.  But he didn’t bring anything to the Mad Hatter.  He was gasp, boring even.

My favorite characters were the Cheshire Cat, whose appearing and disappearing were executed marvelously, and the Caterpillar voiced by Alan Rickman (Snape!)  I also enjoyed Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.  I left the film wanting more of these mainly digital creations and less of the Mad Hatter, the Red Queen’s Knave and the White Queen.  I also enjoyed the Red Queen’s court with all of their deceptive deformities.  I thought that was a nice nod to the things aren’t always what they seem upper classes.

A final note, I opted not to see the film in 3D.  I don’t like 3D.  It makes me nauseous and I wish they’d stop using it.  I realize this may not be a popular opinion, but I do not think the film lost anything visually in the 2D format.

These are just my first impressions.  It’s possible that when I’ve had time to reflect on the film I’ll develop a better (or possibly worse) impression of it.  I plan to find out more about the Art Direction and Digital techniques and cover those next week. What were your thoughts on the film?  I’d be very curious to know…