Christian – Alice In Wonderland
How do I know that Alice In Wonderland is one of the worst live-action adaptations of a fairy tale? Easy: because I’ve watched it. I don’t know anyone who has seen the movie and would defend it for anything other than money or a crippling need to fulfill their crack addictions. Everything about this movie is just unnecessary considering the volumes of adaptations of the source material that have been done to death.
So let’s go back to 2010. I was a fresh faced high school graduate, and Tim Burton had just released a new movie for Disney. One of my favorite cartoons was now getting a Burton treatment. Huzzah! Excelsior! Let’s go see this bad boy!
The first thing I noticed that was slightly off-putting was the amount of attention spent on Johnny Depp in everything involving the film. The posters, advertisements, toys and everything else surrounding the film were all centralized on Depp’s Mad Hatter. But hey, the guy’s a great actor, so let’s give this a shot, eh?
Nope, never should have done it. Alice takes a backseat faster than you can say, “This sucks, and I would very much like my money reimbursed, my wasted time given back, and a date with your daughter and/or wife set up to appease my troubled libido.” This wasn’t Alice In Wonderland. This was a bad acid trip centered around Johnny Depp and Burton’s wife doing whatever they’ve been doing for the past ten years together.
Using an established classic as a vehicle for stars that don’t even need a vehicle is detestable. But that’s not the whole reason this movie was terrible. Oh no, trust me, there were plenty of reasons. Everything was completely computer generated, and even if some of it looked beautiful, a majority of it was too obvious not to see past.
Look at the greatest fairy tale of our time: The Princess Bride. That movie is fantastic because it focuses on a story that is just brilliant and doesn’t waste it’s time on “impressive” visuals or an actor playing yet another kooky character. Why can’t every live action fairy tale just be The Princess Bride? Name it what you want, but just give us that again. It wins, forever.
But back to Burton’s shame. Despite his handful of genuinely good films, Alice In Wonderland is definitely not one of them. Go to Wikipedia and look up how many adaptations have been done of this story. Hell, there was a porn version released in the 70s. Chances are it was much better than this one, since it was the people on screen getting screwed and not the fans.
