My sister has been visiting for the last two weeks. She arrived on the 3rd, and she left yesterday. It was fantastic to see her, but her visit was marred by one thing and one thing alone: A trip to the El Capitan theater in Hollywood to see Tim Burton’s latest film, Alice in Wonderland.
I’ve always been fond of Lewis Carroll’s original novels. They’re delightfully nonsensical and full of a very specific sort of whimsy that is seldom seen in stories today. As a child Disney’s animated adaptation of the book (and, as is the case with all Disney animated films, I use the term “adaptation” incredibly loosely) was my favourite until Aladdin came out, but it still holds a special place in my heart.
When I heard that Tim Burton had signed on to direct a live-action version of Alice in Wonderland, I was a little concerned. I had been disappointed with his adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory which was decidedly grim for my liking and focused much more on Willy Wonka than the book really ought to have done. I wasn’t impressed with Corpse Bride, which was structurally more cohesive than The Nightmare Before Christmas, but which had none of the spirit or soul – a horrible irony for a film in no small part about life after death.
I also didn’t like Nightmare, but I could at least appreciate the animation. But then, Burton didn’t direct that one, did he?
That said, I don’t hold to the common opinion shared by many of my friends that Batman Returns was his last truly great movie. I loved Big Fish, a film I would quite happily place in my personal Top 50 Movies of All Time list. But then, Big Fish felt distinctly un-Burtonesque. Certainly it was bizarre, but it lacked most of the hallmarks that make a Tim Burton movie a Tim Burton movie. I can’t help but feel that the film benefited from that, especially considering his current downward spiral. A spiral that started with the aforementioned Corpse Bride, continued into Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and has now come to rest in this latest offering.
Tim Burton isn’t a Director anymore. At some point in the last decade he shed whatever interest he had in making genuinely engrossing movies and has since decided to base most of his creative decisions around whether or not the customers at Hot Topic will buy a handbag or a tee-shirt adorned with whatever crazy character he decides to fart out next. The world of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There are absolutely choc-a-bloc with characters for Burton to mine for merch, and mine he does.
But before we get to the characters, let’s briefly go over the story. Alice is nineteen years old. She’s been asked for her hand in marriage by a horrible, terrible, snotty-nosed turd. Everybody expects her to say Yes, but she’s much more interested in doing her own thing. Instead of answering the question she buggers off, sees the White Rabbit, falls down the rabbit hole and arrives in Narnia Wonderland, where a sequence of events lead to her absolutely having to kill the Jabberwocky because a prophecy says she has to. Oh, and Wonderland is more or less in ruins due to an on-going war between the Red Queen and her benevolent but quirky sister, the White Queen.
It’s a messy story. It’s messy because they’ve tried so very hard to bring cohesion to a world that simply cannot support it. Wonderland was never one place. It was never a world to be explored. It was a plane of existence filled with the nonsensical and the non-sequitur. You cannot travel from A to B in Wonderland because there’s no set path from one to the other. It is, quite simply, a dream. In dreams you’re falling through the sky, and then you land in a bath, and then suddenly you’re in a submarine, and from there you open a door to find you’re in a giant arcade talking to a pink Grandfather Clock about how to break into the stock room to steal some devilled eggs. And then you’re running but you can’t move and then for no reason whatsoever your mother is there trying to feed you treacle.
It isn’t helped by the mixed messages they send in the movie. To start things off Alice is incredibly motivated to be her own person, to stand out from the crowd and do her own thing (and this unfortunately leads to some desperate shoehorning-in of references to the original books which feel painful and forced). But as soon as she arrives in Wonderland everybody is keen to tell her where to go and what to do, and although Alice expresses a distaste for it she ends up doing it anyway because, well, it’s expected of her.
And the Mad Hatter has been fundamentally altered, too. Here he isn’t so much mad as he is scarred. He’s surprisingly lucid, terribly grim, and duller than dishwater. It is without a doubt the worst performance of Johnny Depp’s career, but to be fair to him he didn’t have much to work with. Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum have been changed from a couple of mischievous oddballs to a pair of bland twins who just happen to talk funny. In fact the only character I really enjoyed through the movie was the March Hare, who was genuinely bonkers in a way the Mad Hatter never was and who we unfortunately didn’t see often enough.
From the moment Alice arrives in Wonderland the entire story seems to be gearing towards that epic battle between the Red Queen’s forces and the White Queen’s army, but it doesn’t feel like it progresses naturally. Things happen in the story not because they should, but because they need to in order to progress. Characters appear as and when needed, and then linger for much longer than necessary.
Visually there’s a lot to look at, but it’s messy and inconsistent and it clashes. It doesn’t feel organic or natural at all, and the only time I felt any kind of life on the screen was, bizarrely enough, when plants grow around the outside of the frame containing the end credits.
I went in when low expectations. I didn’t go in thing I’d hate it, and I didn’t go in thinking I’d like it, but I went in expecting to be disappointed. I certainly didn’t expect it to leave as bitter and rancid a taste in my mouth as it left. Tim Burton’s take on Alice in Wonderland is a thoroughly unpleasant affair; a turgid, soulless cinematic infection that exists purely as marketing for a new line of baubles and trinkets from your favourite “alternative” apparel store. The sort of person who says things like “You laugh because we’re different, we laugh because you’re all the same” without even a hint of irony will love this film, and will no doubt go out in droves to buy the tee-shirts, skirts, purses, handbags, wristbands, socks and bracelets so that they can all be Different together.
People have gone to see this film in droves. Possibly they will continue to do so. Seven of us went to see it on Saturday and of the seven I was the only one who didn’t like it. It’s done quite well in the box office too, so Burton and Disney are likely laughing all the way to the First Bank of Wonderland by now. But it left a bitter taste in my mouth that refuses to go anywhere. I’ve never been so negatively polarized by a film in my entire life. It is without a doubt the single worst movie I have ever seen. It shits all over the memory of Lewis Carroll. It wipes its muddy, greasy boots all over his works.
Tim Burton has openly admitted that he had no emotional connection to the original books. Well, why make a movie from them then? Why not find something you do connect to and adapt that instead of taking a beloved classic and raping it? Yes, I know that the cry of “rape!” is a common one when a Director takes something old and tries to do something new with it. It’s an overused word, and a word that really shouldn’t be used when talking about cinematic adaptations. But that is exactly what Tim Burton did. He took Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and he held it down and he had his way with it. Not because he wanted to make his mark upon it. Not because he wanted to do something unique with it. But because he could. Or, rather, because he knew he’d make a shitload of money in merchandising.
Isn’t that just the saddest thing.