Random Musings

(I sat in front of my screen for about ten minutes but couldn’t think of a satisfactory way to start this entry. Anyway, here goes.)

Collaborations are a wonderful thing.

Of course, the world of musical theatre can’t possibly exist without collaborations, but in the world of cinema, it is gratifying to know that special director-actor relationships do exist, such as the one between Tim Burton and Johnny Depp.

(The only other one that comes to mind right now is the budding Scorsese-DiCaprio one.)

So expectations naturally run high when it comes to the latest Burton-Depp partnership – their take on the much-loved tale of “Alice in Wonderland” – the latest well-publicised, well-funded ($200 million), well-starred production by Walt Disney Pictures.

Sadly, and I hope you the reader will forgive me for saying this…but I felt the movie failed to deliver.

In my own uninformed opinion, of course.

The most natural and instinctive responses that I would give to watching this movie is that it “misses the mark”, and that for some reason it just “fails to hit the sweet spot”.

It just never really got going, I felt.

You know how some movies manage to get into a groove and hit a stride?

This one somehow didn’t.

(Rotten Tomatoes gives it a rating of 52% so I guess opinion is largely divided.)

What is immediately apparent the moment Alice falls into the rabbit hole is that the well-loved tale of Alice visiting the strange world called “Wonderland” has been given the Tim Burton treatment.

Not your picture-perfect, aesthetically-pleasing, wholesome story-book sets as per the previous renditions of “Alice” which we were probably brought up on…but darker, edgier, quirkier stuff.

You know, the classic Tim Burton treatment.

So you have to be prepared for that.

Casting Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter is as natural a choice as…well, casting Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka.

There simply is no better choice out there.

He was made for these roles.

One can be forgiven for almost thinking that the Mad Hatter and Willy Wonka are the same character, as they do share certain similar traits and Johnny Depp does play them with the same subtle quirks, but Depp, being the master of off-beat Hollywood roles, pulls it off to perfection like nobody can.

Shades of Mr Wonka and Captain Sparrow at times, but hey, it’s all well and good.

Sadly, where the movie was sorely lacking was in the plot department.

I felt that the movie didn’t have a strong enough storyline to draw the audience in.

The lines were mostly functional at best, with few truly witty or clever lines that made the audience laugh.

Throughout the movie, I had the strange sense that the audience was not completely into the movie, unlike the way I have seen at other movies.

Humour, however sparse, was reduced mostly to moments of the visual slapstick variety.

I felt that the movie was held together by a frail plot, and thus failed to generate sufficient dramatic tension to convincingly build up to a climax.

And the climax, at that, was extremely predictable to be honest.

(Credit, though, must be given to Danny Elfman for contributing such an excellent score for the movie. I thought it served its purpose very well and managed to heighten the tension at required moments.)

I found myself succumbing to the urge to glance at my watch (always a bad sign) exactly at the one-hour mark, and many more times after that.

By about fifty minutes into the movie I had started to ask myself “Where is this all going?”, and any time an audience starts asking that, you know you’ve kind of lost them already.

I know that in movies, you get a fair bit of time to play around with before you have to start to let the audience know where the movie is headed, but I felt “Alice” took far too long, and even then, the storyline wasn’t strong enough for me to want to root for the main character, or any character for that matter.

It was largely linear and bland, in my opinion.

There were, however, many saving graces that the movie has going for it, not least of which I assume is the presence of Johnny Depp himself, whom I suppose has reached the stage whereby his appearance alone in a movie is enough to guarantee that it at least doesn’t flop.

Helena Bonham Carter put in a commendable performance as the “Red Queen”, which makes it hard for her role not to be taken seriously.

And the presence of Anne Hathaway is, well…you know the rest. =)

All in all, I had expected much more from “Alice in Wonderland”, because of the seemingly high number of perfect ingredients it has going for it – classic story, Disney backing, Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, huge budget, etc.

However, it disappointed me significantly.

And I’m not a fussy person, to be honest.

All I ask for is a good story that allows me to get totally immersed in the characters and want to root for them.

But sadly, for all the technical and graphical wizardry of the movie, I guess it lacked the one most important ingredient – the soul.

And like Alice in the movie, I left the cinema wondering if it were all just one bad dream.

(Ok, I’m exaggerating on the last statement. I just wanted to find a stylo way to end my post.)