Sunday, July 18, 2010

Movie Review: Alice In Wonderland


I watched "Alice In Wonderland" last week, but due to busy family circumstances I'm just finally getting around to reviewing it. This is the Johnny Depp version from earlier this year.

In this version of the story, Alice Kingsley is now 19 years old and is contemplating some life changing decisions. All her life she has lost sleep due to dreams about falling down a rabbit hole into a strange world. While chasing a white rabbit, she does indeed fall down a rabbit hole into a strange world called Underland, where everyone knows who she is, but she doesn't know anyone. In this strange world, she meets the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter, the evil Red Queen, and the good White Queen. But, can she become the hero that Underland needs her to be to save Underland from the grips of the evil Red Queen and her Jaberwocky?

I actually enjoyed this movie, though I wondered for a long time if I was going to. Alice is played by Mia Wasikowska, who I didn't know before this movie. She took a very long time to develop a personality in the story. Johnny Depp plays his usual weird self...he never does a normal role, have you noticed that? I was really happy to see Crispin Glover as the Red Queen's right hand man. He hasn't gotten enough action since "Back to the Future". Helena Bonham Carter was just average as the Red Queen, while Anne Hathaway was airy and semi-mysterious as the White Queen.

One thing I liked a lot was the vocal talent that the movie provided for the animated characters. Alan Rickman was awesome as the blue caterpillar...can't remember it's name right now. Rickman's voice is so distinct. The other voice I was glad to hear was that of Christopher Lee (a.k.a Count Dooku). See if you can find him...I won't tell you the character.

Overall, "Alice in Wonderland" was a good movie. It wasn't so great that I wanted to save it for my kids to watch, but it's an entertaining 2 hours.

2 comments:

Jake said...

Nuke pointed out that I didn't give a star rating. I'll go with 3.52 stars.

Nuke said...

Which would mean 2.14 for me.