The beginning story in Tim Burton's Alice is so intriguing I’d go through any nonsense to find out what happens. Normally we don’t see why Alice is escaping into the rabbit hole. This time she is running from a marriage proposal given in front of a crowd of people. It reminisces of Wizard of Oz with the world she’s really in and the one she falls into.
It is frustrating at first because it follows the normal story, but there are little things that throw it off track. The characters from Wonderland keep asking if she’s the “right” Alice, played by Mia Wasikowska. They also mention that it is Underland, not Wonderland. It’s only near the end of the movie that we find out it’s not Alice in Wonderland at all but a sort of sequel. When she was a child she went to Underland and called it Wonderland. Now she is returning to save Underland from the evil red Queen, played by Helena Bonham Carter.
The World of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland
The politics are much more involved, it makes a very good interpretation of the book since the book, written by Lewis Carroll, is rather vague. The red Queen is the elder sister of the white Queen, played by Anne Hathaway. She stole the kingdom and is a harsh ruler. The red Queen is cards, the white Queen is chess, and they meet on a giant chessboard to fight. It’s all the game of politics and life.
All of the red Queen’s court have strange abnormalities, a large body part usually, but the white Queen’s court are all annoyingly beautiful and sweet and somewhat weird, kind of “Jack Sparrow-ish.” It turns out the red Queen’s court’s abnormalities were all fake in the end, just a play for her approval. In common Tim Burton style they certainly took liberties with the story and made it so much more adult; it’s dark and a tad insane.
The Strengths of Alice in Wonderland
The acting is phenomenal. The sets are beyond imaginative. Alice’s fashion is trend-setting. The movie is consistent, every animal talks including the horse that is being ridden. The moat full of heads around the red Queen’s castle is just plain disgusting. The imagination put into such little details such as the concoction to make Alice the right size again, is amazing.
It is a complete world that anybody could fall into with reckless abandonment. Alice says, “Sometimes I believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” The Mad Hatter, played by Johnny Depp, answers, “That is an excellent practice.” It is all about believing what you see and trusting yourself.
Amie McCracken - I have been a writer since my childhood. Stories about unicorns and fairies were what I began with, but now I write novels and freelance ...
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