109) Alice in Wonderland (2010) Dir: Tim Burton Date Released: March 2010 Date Seen: March 21, 2010 Rating: 1.75/5
I've never been so mortified to call myself a Tim Burton as I was after watching this drab and thoroughly mismanaged take on Lewis Carroll's iconic fever dream. It induced shell-shock in me as I watched. I felt like I was pinned to my seat; there were no words, just my big, slack, gaping mouth. Everything that should go right with this adaptation doesn't. Both Mia Wasikowska and Helena Bonham-Carter stand out, yes, yes, but it's hard to give a damn about seeing Johnny Depp quirk up another role for Burton like he does here. Likewise, there's a kernel of an exciting and fittingly brooding revisionist take on the film here, one that is extra-sensitive to the hints of proto-feminism buried deep in the background of Caroll's story. But it's completely squandered on a dull stock plot about Alice being "the chosen one" and hence fated to save Wonderland. So sluggish and uninteresting. I miss the Alice in Wonderland adaptations of my youth, like the one with Ben Vereen and Gene Wilder or the Disney one. Now I can't get that god-awful image of Depp break-dancing out of my head no matter how hard I try. This thing had Christopher Lee voice the Jabberwocky. How could it go so wrong in so many ways?
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