[UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): Injured girl hallucinates.
PEOPLE: Tim Burton!
Johnny Depp! Helena Bonham Carter! Anne Hathaway. Crispin Glover (Beowulf, 9, Epic Movie, Charlie’s Angels, Dead Man, The Doors, Wild At Heart, Twister, Friday The 13th 4). Alan Rickman. And Mia Wasikowska as Alice. She’s 20, so it’s not thoughtcrime to look at her lustfully.
QUIRKS: Based on a mixture of both books: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass.
VISUALS: Blonde hair good, black eyebrows bad. I’d have preferred Anne Hathaway’s eyebrows match her hair. It really bothered me more than it should have.
However, since this was 3-D, it was indeed a fantastic voyage to see everything in this movie.
Double however: We saw this with the grey-ish polarized 3-D glasses (RealD), not the superior IMAX-3D used in Avatar. RealD 3D does not hold up to Avatar’s IMAX-3D nearly as well, and the color isn’t as vivid with the grey-tinted glasses. Avatar spoiled me, so the 3-D was awesome, but still a bit of a disappointment. Probably should have shelled out extra for the IMAX.
BAD STUFF: I know people would probably consider it out of character for me, but I’ve never really been into Alice In Wonderland that much. It’s also out of character for me to be caught up by the hype and go see something IN THE THEATRE I’m not normally that interested in. However, Tim Burton + 3-D is a win.
On a personal note, because I didn’t see it in IMAX (or fake imax) 3-D, blackness entered a lot of my vision… Which contributed to me falling asleep about 10 times during this. Well, I mostly blame that on 3 shots of gin. But still, it’s another reason I prefer watching at home, with rear ambilight behind my TV. Nor did I have this problem with Avatar, which I saw in fake IMAX. If I were home, I’d have been able to rewind, or take a break to wake up more. Instead I paid $15 to fall asleep. Argh. Still, I was awake during 98% of the movie. This isn’t like The Simpsons Movie, where I was only awake during about 60% of it (haha, I still need to re-watch The Simpsons Movie).
Tim Burton said that most Alice movies felt like a series of events to him — not a connected story. And that he wanted to remedy that. Personally, I can’t say that he succeeded.
CONCLUSION: A slight disappointment, but still quite amazing to see in 3-D. My only problem was that I was expecting to be blown away, like with Avatar, but I wasn’t. People attribute this to it originally being shot in 3-D, and then converted to 3-D. But that’s not the first time Tim Burton’s done this. Nightmare Before Christmas 3-D totally blew me away.
RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 7.5/10. I’ll still vote it 8 on IMDB because I might be a bit more critical than I usually am today.
Carolyn: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10. “Though I am familiar with the story of the second book, I was not as familiar with it as I am with the first story. I read about it on the wikipedia page, and it makes about as much sense as it did when I was a kid. I don’t remember how I was exposed to the Through The Looking Glass story. But I did think Tim Burton did a good job telling the story.”
The native public rating for this movie is: IMDB: 7.0/10, Netflix: 4.0/5 stars (Netflix‘s predicted rating for us was 4.5/5 stars–too high).
RECOMMENDATION: See it… But don’t expect The Most Amazing Thing You’ve Ever Seen, like some people seem to be.
SIMILAR MOVIES: Any trippy fantasy movie. Especially where you aren’t sure if it’s real or not. Pan’s Labyrinth?
MOVIE QUOTE: The Mad Hatter: Have I gone mad?
[Alice checks Hatter’s temperature]
Alice Kingsley: I’m afraid so. You’re entirely bonkers. But I’ll tell you a secret. All the best people are.
FRIENDS’ RATINGS:
Amy M thought it was “absolutely awesome”.
Todd P thought it was great.
Daniel H enjoyed it a lot. He didn’t think the 3-D rendered as well, and I agree: These were inferior 3-d glasses. However, I can’t agree with his recommendation to skip the 3-D altogether; I think it’s the only reason to not simply wait and view it at home.
MaryJane M thought it was good.
Joe R: “It’s similar to Willy Wonka. If you’re expecting a firm adaptation, you won’t like it. However, it stands on its own as a fun movie.”
Ben W: “I think it depends how much you are attached to the Lewis Carol stories. If you are a big fan then stay away, a lot of liberties have been taken. If not there are some graphical things that might grind on your eyes(not in a good way), but over all it is a popcorn movie. As an aside, I am hyper critical of movies and anything I say about them should be taken with a spoon full of salt.”
Music: Megadeth – Take No Prisoners
Claire's blog 
May 7, 2010 at 10:10 AM
Because the polarized Real D glasses are darkened, the theater is supposed to compensate with brighter projector bulbs. Thing is, they’re more expensive, so some theaters have been cutting corners and using standard bulbs. Real D doesn’t have to be dim; I saw Avatar in Real D, and it looked bright and spectacular just like it should. Given the premiums now being charged for 3D, studios need to be a lot more vigilant about spot checking theaters for the appropriate brightness. Otherwise people are justifiably going to get annoyed and this 3D fad will likely pass just as quickly as the last one.
That said, you may not have been much happier with it in IMAX 3D. Avatar was not only filmed in 3D, it was filmed with an entirely new 3D technology, developed specifically for the movie. No 3D movie has ever looked that good, and films that don’t use the Fusion Camera System that Cameron helped develop for that movie simply aren’t going to be up to that quality.
The added problem with Alice is that not only was it not filmed with Avatar‘s 3D system, but it wasn’t filmed in 3D at all. Burton filmed in standard 2D and then digitally converted in post-production. While it wasn’t a rush conversion like Clash of the Titans (which has awful, awful 3D), it’s still an artificial rendering of a 3D image from a flat image. That’s inevitably just not going to look as good.
May 7, 2010 at 10:21 AM
Right. But the shot in 2-D thing isn’t an automatic fail. Burton had Nightmare Before Christmas converted to 3-D a good 10 years after it was shot — and it blew me away. This did not. Maybe it was just too much gin… or the bulbs not being as bright, as you mentioned.
May 7, 2010 at 3:37 PM
Parthena: “I think you and Carolyn liked it about as much as I did- I found it entertaining and enjoyable but wasn’t “blown away.” However, I was intrigued with the weird romance that they hinted at between the Hatter and Alice….”
May 7, 2010 at 3:39 PM
That about sums it up.
August 28, 2010 at 4:22 PM
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November 12, 2011 at 7:02 AM
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