Burton’s ALICE, A Not-so-Wonder(ful)land – Reviewing ALICE IN WONDERLAND (2010)

Posted by Michael Thielvoldt

Dir. Tim Burton
Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar, 3/6/10, 10:00pm

Just a few weeks after declaring myself a Burton and Depp nut on assignment #4 I found myself face to face with one of my most anticipated films of 2010. Tim Burton’s latest fairy tale is yet another remake of a beloved childhood adventure. He’s done Dahl. He’s reimagined Irving. Why not recreate Carroll? In the assignment posting I anticipated the director-narrative pairing to be an ideal match. Dark creepy director meets dark creepy tale. Cast Burton’s favorite eccentric muse in the flamboyant role of the Madd Hatter, another all-too-perfect pairing, and the movie writes itself, right? In this case, wrong.

Apparently a chimp on a typewriter “writes” it. A sequel to the original Carroll tales, Burton’s Wonderland tells the story of a grown-up Alice who, having just escaped an unwelcome marriage proposal, flees to the long-forgotten Wonderland of her childhood. Yet again following the White Rabbit down his rabbit hole, Alice is once more put through the Wonderland wringer. How does she fit through the little door? Drink the bottle labeled “Drink Me.” How does she grow to a size large enough to reach the key she left on the now much-too-tall table? Eat the cookie frosted “Eat Me.” Sound familiar? Well, it does to the White Rabbit, as well, as indicated by the off-screen voice noting, “You’d think she’d remember this from the last time.” This kind of clever commentary sets up for an intriguing reflexive narrative that confronts the Alice in Wonderland mythology while weaving a new addition to it.

Damn it! I’ve said it a thousand times! It’s not a dragon, it’s a Jabberwocky, I tell you.

Unfortunately, the film doesn’t follow through on this set-up. Instead, it devolves from there into a simplistic and trite tale, which pits Alice against…dun dun duhhh…a dragon! (Hold for gasp.) Yes, a dragon. Now they call it a Jabberwocky, an admirable incorporation of the Carroll poem featured in Through the Looking-Glass, but it is nothing more than a dragon. Argh! A dragon slaying tale…seriously? I say again, argh! Burton and screenwriter Linda Woolverton do their best to weave in as many Wonderland staples as possible (the tea party, the hookah toking caterpillar, beheadings decreed by the Red Queen, the portly Tweedle twins, etc.) but to no avail. The insertion of these expected inclusions are half-hearted. There is no more the attempt at reflexivity established by the White Rabbit’s earlier commentary. Instead, each new inclusion plays out like a Carroll criteria list being mechanically checked off.

Herein lies the real atrocity of the film. Despite the set-up of an original Alice story, Burton doesn’t attempt anything new with his film. Instead it feels like stale Alice references pasted to a throwaway storyline. There’s nothing to love about this film, but there is nothing to really hate, either. This is the reason for my frigid response to the film and also my delayed review. This film is so blatantly middle-of-the-road that it is dually uninteresting and uninspiring, thus the lag between my viewing of the film nearly two weeks ago and the writing of the review today.

Take my advice. Let the rabbit be.

So, while this film has all the macabre expected in a Burton picture, and while the pairing of Alice and Burton seems a wondrous match, the end result is as meek as a titmouse. Take my advice: let the White Rabbit descend down its rabbit hole alone this time.