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CinemaSins Movie Reviews
From the book of the same title by Lewis Carroll
Alice falls down the rabbit hole (again) and finds that Wonderland has changed…
Okay, it’s an interesting concept: Alice is grown up, the Wonderland stuff is just bad dreams she had as a kid, she is about to be forced into an unwelcome engagement with a seepy creep…and she falls down a rabbit hole again. But this time, she’s grown up, and this time things have changed: the Red (playing card) Queen and the White (chess) Queen are at war, and it’s dangerous, and she is the Chosen One who is supposed to kill the Jabberwock with the Vorpal Sword.
I really really really wanted to like this movie, and we were very excited about it. It was the first real Blu-Ray movie we watched on our new player (thanks SJ!) and we planned a pizza and movie evening and were all set to enjoy ourselves.
Silly us for picking this movie.
Sure, they tried. Johnny Depp was the Mad Hatter, although he was channelling Jack Sparrow pretty often. Many big stars were in this movie, and did well. Tim Burton designed it, so it was fun to look at…but you know, it really wasn’t much of a much. Very predictable, not very exciting, no added value.
Also, their audience was not clear; from the plot, I would have said it was a kid’s movie…but it was way too dark and scary for kids, even these days. And there are a lot of sexual overtones, again pretty normal for Burton, but a little more than I would bring a kid under 14 or so to see. Even these days. Adults? I didn’t think there was that much to it, not enough meat on the bones for my grownup brain.
Pixar and that ilk manage to make kids movies that are appealing on both levels…maybe Mr. Burton needs to go back and see Toy Story a few more times…
But the worst? Every time they mentioned the Jabberwock, steam shot out of my ears. Because they kept calling the beast a JABBERWOCKY, which is the name of the POEM. It’s a poem about the JABBERWOCK, so it’s called JABBERWOCKY. Get it? the animal is a JABBERWOCK. And I find it hard to believe that all the scriptwriters were too stupid to get this, since ten year old kids find it perfectly simple and reasonable.
Oh, and of course Johnny Depp had to do a silly hip-hop-ish dance, I think that’s required in movies these days.
Rent it for the special effects, don’t expect too much.
And I don’t think this being in blu-ray made any difference. It still sucked.
theotterlimits 