Film Review: Alice in Wonderland

Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter,  Crispin Glover, Anne Hathaway

Directed by: Tim Burton

I know I’m a few days late on this review, but earlier this week, which was last Tuesday, I did go see the movie, Tim Burton’s “Alice In Wonderland”. Before that I went to Best Buy and picked up the new “God of War III” video game. I’m not going to start “God of War III” right away ’cause I need to finish the first two games first. I’m still at the end of “God of War I”.

Now lets get on with the review:

Plot/Synopsis: Tim Burton decided to do his take on the famous Lewis Carroll novel, “Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland”, which is a famous children’s novel that I loved ever since I was a kid. The plot and story is pretty much the same idea, but Tim Burton’s version is just a little bit different than so many other versions of “Alice” we’ve seen over the years. Yep, same thing, Alice discovers another world where the White Rabbit takes her and she meets all these strange characters such as the Caterpillar, Chesire the Cat, The Mad Hatter, etc. Except the only difference, that Alice doesn’t dress up in armor, and getting a sword to actually fight the Jabberwocky in the novel, but I can understand why Burton threw that in there ’cause I guess he wanted to match the idea with the poem that was written about the Jabberwocky, that was actually taken from the novel. This isn’t really a spoiler since the trailers already showed Alice in armor with a sword.

I’ll be honest, that I usually hate Johnny Depp and Tim Burton collaborations. Don’t get me wrong, I love both of these guys, but when they work together on a film, I have no interest. Their work is so overrated and too mainstream, that I get sick of these guys working together all the time. I never really wanted to see this version of “Alice In Wonderland”, but I was kind of talked into seeing it…but since I’m a huge fan of the Lewis Carroll novel which is a book that I love, I decided what the hell, I’ll go see it to see if I like it or not.

A lot of people were shitting on this movie. Saying how bad it was, giving the movie mixed reviews. Not many people I’ve seen online giving it positive reviews. When I went and saw it, you wonder what my thoughts are?

Well, here’s the answer…..scroll down a bit…

I FUCKING LOVED IT!!! 🙂 Really, I was that surprised by the film. Were the negative critics watching the same movie? I thought the film was fucking brilliant! It’s exactly what a live action “Alice” movie should be! Tim Burton really did his homework to make the movie right. He must of studied the novel and seen all the earlier remakes. Burton didn’t want to fuck around and make the right version of “Alice”. This is probably the best version. The Visuals were just perfect. The way it was supposed to be from the novel. The humor is there as the book had a lot of humor in it. It had a lot of dark themes and adventure in the film just like the novel. The acting wasn’t that bad, but I thought the writing of the script was well written. Special effects and cinematography is what the film needed to get the look in  your head of what the novel is supposed to be like.

I thought Crispin Glover was a badass as the Knave of Hearts, he was my favorite character from the film. I guess Johnny Depp was the right fit for the Mad Hatter. Helena Bonham Carter did great voicing the Red Queen as she sounded evil and it made you want to hate her every time you saw her on screen.

It was a very entertaining film. Definitely thumbs up for this one.

Score for “Alice in Wonderland” = **** (4 stars as in “excellent”)

Kev

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