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Bookmark this pageAlice in Wonderland (2010)
Director: Tim Burton
Synopsis
Tim Burton directs a new version of Lewis Carrol's much-loved tale of adolescent inquisitiveness and fantasy. Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter star (unsurprisingly) as the Mad Hatter and the Queen of Hearts.
Movie review
From Time Out London
Tim Burton’s part-live action, part-animated, all-3D version of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ is a collage of characters and episodes from Lewis Carroll’s two nineteenth-century books about a girl who falls into the rabbit hole of her own imagination. But purists beware: Burton and his writer, Disney regular Linda Woolverton (‘The Lion King’), invent a quest narrative – Alice must slay the Jabberwocky! – that climaxes in a pedestrian battle for which Alice puts aside dresses and channels Joan of Arc. Moreover, our heroine’s loopy headtrip begins with her fleeing a very public marriage proposal with the twenty-first-century excuse, ‘I need a moment…’This is a loose, enjoyable and safe spin on the books, with familiar characters doing familiar things within the altered – and digitised – framework of an older Alice (Mia Wasikowska) returning underground to find the Red Queen (a fun Helena Bonham Carter, actually playing a conflation of the Red Queen and the Queen of Hearts) ruling a depressed land.
The problem with this downtrodden version of Wonderland is that it doesn’t always sit well with the mania of Carroll’s creations, and when we see a brighter flashback of the Red Queen painting roses, we wish we were in that world. Imagine the Cheshire Cat (voiced by Stephen Fry), the wise Caterpillar (voiced by Alan Rickman) and the Mad Hatter (an underwhelming, repetitive Johnny Depp) all doing their thing in the forests of ‘Avatar’s’ Pandora after a long bout of acid rain and you begin to get the picture. Much of the colour has been sucked out and replaced with dark skies and long faces.
Yet much of Carroll’s magical nonsense remains, even if Burton’s film wobbles at the gates of anarchy and ends up being a more average affair than many might expect. It’s also one in which the inventive costumes and individual flights of animated fancy end up being more memorable than the thin characters and half-hearted 3D rendering. As it’s Burton at the helm, you could call it gothic. The less generous might just call it gloomy.
Author: Dave Calhoun
Time Out London Issue 2063, 4-10 Mar 2010
User reviews of this film
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- Moi said...
- Posted on Apr 10 2011 18:59 Visually a beautiful film. Storywise? Not so much. Rusty acting from pretty much everyone. I thought the combination of Burton and Carroll would be a match made in heaven, but I was disappointed. Sorry Tim, I've lost faith in you.
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- Eva said...
- Posted on Apr 17 2010 12:26 I LOVED IT!! but i love anything Tim Burton and Johnny Depp i loved the mix of real life and animation. i also loved the drained colours it made so wonderfully dark. I loved Alice i thought she was such a strong female character and very interesting to watch and she didn't come across as spoilt at all which is how she is slightly portrayed in the book. LOVED IT!
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- Olivia said...
- Posted on Apr 16 2010 12:25 i have forgot to rate this movie the last time so im just rating it now . 5 STAR!!!!!!
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- Olivia said...
- Posted on Apr 16 2010 12:22 OMG! this film is brilliant its the best film i have ever seen AMAZING!!!!! i went to see it with my friends and they thought the same and they also thought it was hilarious and so did i !!!
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- lucia said...
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Posted on Apr 15 2010 14:28
a brill film it is absolutely g8.
if haven't seen you have got to see it - Report as inappropriate
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- kate said...
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Posted on Apr 11 2010 15:31
I really loved it
My boyfriend and me enjoyed it
and the mad hatter was really ausome.
i love you babes
i love my boyfriend.
He actually kissed me in the film.
(he actually kissed me in the film) - Report as inappropriate
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- kate said...
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Posted on Apr 11 2010 15:30
I really loved it
My boyfriend and me enjoyed it
and the mad hatter was really ausome.
i love my boyfriend.
He actually kissed me in the film.
(he actually kissed me in the film) - Report as inappropriate
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- sn00py_ sn00py said...
- Posted on Apr 09 2010 13:51 i thought this film was fab but a bit dark i liked the white queen she was very pretty
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- fofoe said...
- Posted on Apr 07 2010 10:17 i have not seen the film because ash dose not want to go but my friends say its gr8
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- fofoe said...
- Posted on Apr 07 2010 10:17 i have not seen the film because ash dose not want to go but my friends say its gr8
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- jade said...
- Posted on Apr 06 2010 20:55 alice in wonderland was an absoulutley AMAZING FILM i dont know why people are saying are i fell asleep and are it was boring you lot are a bunch of goons you really need to go to speaksavers if you think what you were seeing was rubish you TURD BAGS!!!!! anyway i think it was absoulutley fantastic, a must see film, I LOVED THE MAD HATTER HE WAS AUSOME. and i loved the costumes esspecially alices when she was in the red queens castle love naomi, natasha, jessica who i went to see it with and natasha, BOOGEDY BOOGEDY BOO!!
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- sammie.xx said...
- Posted on Apr 05 2010 10:37 awesome a must see!
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- assia said...
- Posted on Apr 04 2010 10:03 is this in 3D today 4 april
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- viv netting said...
- Posted on Apr 02 2010 17:59 I went to see Alice with an open mind. I haven't seen anything in 3D for a very long time & I absolutely LOVED it! The cat was almost sitting on my lap! It was amazing & well worth the money.
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- Lynn said...
- Posted on Apr 01 2010 16:18 Alice in Wonderland is my favouite stort, so really enjoyed the film, although I was very disappointed with the lack of 3D effects throughout. They were minimal and as this was my first 3D film, I was expecting a lot more!
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Cast & crew
Director: Tim Burton
Cast: Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Crispin Glover, Anne Hathaway, Stephen Fry, Christopher Lee, Michael Sheen, Alan Rickman, Marcia Lucas, Timothy Spall, Barbara Windsor, Frances de la Tour, Tim Pigott-Smith, Paul Whitehouse full cast
Genre(s): Fantasy
Rated: PG
Duration: 108 mins
UK Release: Mar 5 2010
US Release: Mar 5 2010
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