Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland - A review



Let me start by thanking my cousins, Jarrod and Nadia, for getting me off my ass and off to the movies to see the new 3D phenomenon that everyone's talking about, Alice in Wonderland, directed by none other than Tim Burton of Titanic fame. I've just seen Avatar in 3D, so it's important to note that my expectations were ridiculously high for this one.
I'm going to start with the bad and end with the good...
As far as the story goes, you could pretty much sum it up in a sentence or two. And then Tim Burton took 2 sentences and spread them over ±1.5hours. It was draggy. Super draggy. Draggier than Ru Paul, draggy. Long, loooooooooooooooong. If you're expecting non-stop action and 3D mayhem with stuff flying at your head for the entire time, don't watch this movie. You will be disappointed. And now that I've had my bitch, onto the good stuff.
The landscapes and art direction were absolutely breathtaking! Quintessential Tim Burton at his absolute best. My eyes didn't know where to look; as every inch of it just oozed style and wonderfulness. Wowzer.



The acting was outstanding. Mr Depp was incredible as always, even though the writing didn't give him much to work with. There was a crappy dance at the end that had me cringing, but I'll forgive him for that as long as he replies to my marriage proposal promptly. Helena Bonham Carter was just FANTASTIC as the Red Queen, even though they didn't give her much to work with either. Fabbo!
And the best bit...
OMG, the costumes!



Or can you even call them "costumes"? Maybe the stuff that they had the regular characters in might be classified as "costume". But the dresses that they draped over that lucky bitch who played Alice were nothing short of sensational! There was a real Vivienne Westwood / Alexander McQueen vibe that blew me away. I LOVED Alice's dresses, especially the one that the Red Queen had made especially for her. Check it out:





These pics really don't do it any justice. It was structured, but feminine. It was MAD but completely made sense. OMG, I would wear that on my wedding day if I ever found a man rich enough to buy it for me! *swoon*
I need to stop gushing about this dress now, so... *sigh*
As far as the characters went, my favourite was the Cheshire cat. He was BEAUTIFUL and feline, and flowy and funny... Love, love, LOVE!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

You took what shouldve been a review about the movie and turned it into a glamour magazine article....grrr. Poooor effort by Burton who I expected so much more from and suspect succumbed to the pressure of those signing the cheques.Johnny dep was poorly utilised. Alice was a waste. The storyline lost all psychological elements and became focused on trying to convince girls different to the point of being a cliché.