I saw Alice in Wonderland last night and was blown away. If it wasn’t for my daughter pleading to go, I would have begged off. Tim Burton isn’t my favorite director-his stuff is too creepy and weird for me.
The screenplay was flawless-even to me who has only minimal knowledge of how screenplays are written. By engineering Alice as young adult, drawn back to Wonderland to complete a predestined quest, and linking that metaphorically to her life as a young woman in eighteenth century England, Burton put in a lovely twist which took this out of the fairytale realm and made a heroine worthy of Joan of Arc status.
I am continually amazed by the range of Burton’s wife, Helena Bonham Carter. Though I prefer to immortalize her as Lucy Honeychurch in the sumptuous Merchant-Ivory production of E M Forester’s Room With A View (one of my all-time favorite movies), Ms. Carter does bad sooooo good. The Red Queen was both dastardly and amusing in her absurdity, nothing like her role as the elegantly evil Bellatrix Lestrange in the Harry Potter flicks-but she deserves credit for allowing them to make her up to look like such a caricature as well as for her skill. All the acting was great, and the special effects classic Burton creepy (my daughter’s words, not mine) but stunning.
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Everyone I've talked to, that has seen the movie, says they really liked it. I haven't been to see it yet. Will probably just wait until it comes out on DVD.
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