Thank god for Patrick: here’s his review of Alice in Wonderland:

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So, I haven’t been the best at keeping up with this so far but, as my goal is to post regularly, from here on in there will be one post a week. Like the blog itself, I’ll try to deal with what’s current, but sometimes we’re going to have to dig into the past.

So, getting down to it, let’s talk about Alice in Wonderland, my first experience of the new digital 3D process. Let me put it this way, years ago I was fortunate enough to see a lovely little opus called Stewardesses in 3D. The premise is simple, stewardesses are on leave for the weekend, hijinx ensue. Probably the worst Russ Meyer rip-off ever, Stewardesses does what every other old-school 3D film does, it gives you a flat story, and keeps jabbing stuff into the foreground to remind you just how cool 3D is. Basically, it’s bad 1970s pseudo-sexual revolution film, with a few bouncing breasts and one large cocktail thrust in your face.

Alice in Wonderland is obviously more high-class than that—a girl falls down a rabbit hole, hijinx ensue. But I’ll throw it out there right now and claim that it uses the same formula. The film pales in comparison with the Disney adaptation from 1951…challenge me if you want…and may very well pale against the older live action versions, which I’ve never seen. Burton, aided by screenwriter Linda Woolverton, seem to be trying to mix Through the Looking Glass, Alice in Wonderland and creative license into some form of an ‘unparalleled experience in cinematic fantasy.’ Do we care? Well, not really. To begin, the characters, whether you remember them from earlier versions or not, do very little of interest, and can be outright boring. To compensate, Burton has added some new characters, including the White Queen, who presides over the good part of Underland (no longer Wonderland), but who really just likes like Gandalf’s niece. In fact, the whole movie kind of feels like a shoddy remake of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, meant to fit into the space of two hours. An unsuspecting outsider finds herself on a quest of great importance to bringing peace two an entire world. Guided by a knowledgeable sage, she is aided by different creatures along the way. Finally, she accepts her role as the champion of a new world order and kills the Jabberwocky, a wicked beast that wreaks evil with its fiery claws. Some characters may blur the comparison, but its pretty lord of the rings-ish…

Anyway, you get to experience the majesty of all this in 3D, and when things get flat, Alice, the playing card soldiers, the Cheshire cat, the rose bush—just like in Stewardesses, everybody starts thrusting things in your face. But, to be fair, the 3D is, on occasion, really impressive, with characters floating off the screen and right out over the audience. For moments, the film gets really cool, and is like nothing I’ve seen in the old format…not even grandpa goes through the window. Still, I’m not sure that it was cool enough to shatter the meaning of my own life, but maybe that’s too cynical, or too unfair to Avatar.

Anyway, to finish on a positive note, there are several other Alice adaptations for rent in K/W, at places like Gen X—and these include two of the sexploitation versions—so when you’re done with Burton’s, and you want to see what other people have tried, you can check them out…I’m banking on the 1966 BBC production being pretty solid.

Until next time…

- plf.