This could have been a very good movie. Tim Burton could have made an outstanding Alice in Wonderland. I know this to be true because at the end of this movie’s second act, I saw a flashback montage. It was bright, it was colorful and the young Alice onscreen was simply perfect. As I saw it, I wanted to stand up and scream “WHY AM I NOT SEEING THAT MOVIE?! Come on, Burton, where’s the rest of it?!”
Yes, this story has been told umpteen times, but Burton had so much to bring to it. His visual style is on full display here and it brings Wonderland to life in a superb way. The casting is also perfect, save for two complaints.
The first is the Jabberwocky. It’s voiced by Christopher Lee, who gets a grand total of two lines before Alice cuts its tongue off. I’ll repeat that: Christopher Lee gets his tongue cut off. Tim Burton, you cast one of the most legendary actors in Hollywood, famous for being gifted with the greatest voice ever possessed by man, and he gets fifteen seconds before his character is violently stripped of his ability to speak? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND?!
The second is Alice herself, newcomer Mia Wasikowska. To be clear, I’m not saying she did a bad job. I’m saying that she couldn’t have done a good job. No young actress could possibly have looked good with makeup resembling one of Sweeney Todd’s old corpses. Moreover, no young actress could have made a good performance out of this screenplay.
To start with, we already know that this is indeed the Alice of the original Lewis Carroll story, yet Alice herself doesn’t come to this realization until the aforementioned flashback at the end of the second act. From the beginning ’til there, Alice keeps going on about how this is all a dream and she’s not “the right Alice.” The audience is always so far ahead of the protagonist that these complaints serve only to tax patience and test pain thresholds.
Alice also has some cringe-worthy lines during the climax, but the Hatter gets his share of bad screenplay moments, too. That subplot he has about a raven and a writing desk? SPOILER ALERT: *It goes nowhere.* And did you ever want to see Hatter from the book break dancing or wielding a broadsword? Even if you did, I doubt you’d be able to watch those moments without cringing.
The movie leans heavily on plot-convenient amnesia, ancient prophecies, destiny, an epic fight of good vs. evil and other old, worn cliches that had absolutely no place in the original story. This over-reliance on tired cliches makes Wonderland something it should never, ever be: Predictable and mundane. To be clear, I don’t blame Tim Burton for trying something new, I just blame him for going too far in that direction at a million miles an hour.
Some detractors say that this marks Tim Burton’s creative bankruptcy. I wouldn’t quite go that far. I would, however, say that if Burton is going to keep directing, he needs to stop making adaptations and get back to creating his own worlds. Otherwise, he should retire from directing and instead focus on producing, much as he did for 9.