Movie Review: Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland
Rating: 3/10.
Review contains spoilers as a matter of course. Be the chamber so advised.
It was pretty. It was very pretty, even though I always have extra trouble focusing in 3D -- the focal length problem with wearing the 3D goggles over real glasses. But the real glasses are, as we say, non-optional, so whatever. It was pretty.
It was, however, HORRIBLE. I mean, as an Alice fan of some standing, who loves her Annotated Alice to bits and can recite all of Jabberwocky from memory, it was a feast of pain. PAIN I tell you.
But first, before I get down to the nitpicking, the big thing.
Thanks for the punch in the face, Mr. Burton. Really. What I needed in life was more movies with the message that the unattractive, red-headed elder sister who's always the first one to get angry is an evil and pathetic person who deserves no respect and is always in the wrong. I've never heard that one before. It's good to know that those poor, benighted attractive, charismatic, NORMAL blonde girls in the world will have their egos boosted at the expense of mine. They never get to be the good guys, after all.
I cannot be the only one left with the distinct impression that the Red Queen was right about the White Queen, who is in fact a manipulative fake-sugar bitch of the first order. I mean, beautiful castle, beautiful sparkly dress, beautiful unbound yet perfectly tame tresses, animals love her, never has to do her own fighting, and has sworn an oath to harm no living creature? Either she's faking it or she's a Mary Sue, which is in many ways exactly like being a manipulative fake-sugar bitch of the first order. I mean, seriously? Of course, I was biased against her for basic real-world which-character-is-identifiable-with-for-me reasons, but also for reasons that follow.
On that note, all the Wonderlanders are all wrong. All. Wrong. Beginning, in fact, with the White Queen, who is much more likable and interesting as a disorganized, scatterbrained, dowdy old sheep of fifty-odd. I don't know who this teenager is, but I have every reason to presume she killed the real White Queen and took her place. And moving on to the Red Queen of Hearts, which ticked me off because CHARACTER CONFLATION FOR THE LOSE. The Red Queen is an ultimately kindly old termagant Alice shakes into a kitten at the end, while the Queen of Hearts is the arrogant short-tempered one with a tendency to order executions when she can't think of anything else to say. They are quite different. The Knave isn't much of a Knave, at that. A cad, perhaps, but not a Knave.
For that matter, if they'd been able to decide if we were playing chess or cards it would have been ideal. The chess pieces mostly got the shaft, at that -- no White Knight, no White King, no Red King (unless the one the RQoH killed was in fact the RKoH, in which case fail also on that account), not even Lily the white pawn whom Alice replaces. And of course no Duchess, no Mock Turtle, no Humpty-Dumpty, no Bill the lizard, no Walrus and the Carpenter...
And no puns. Or rather, the tiredest and least entertaining puns taken out helter-skelter out of context and without anything to make them fun other than nostalgia. And very little of the poetry, only a bit out of Jabberwocky with the lines all out of order. And it's never explained how by any stretch one could describe Alice as a beamish boy.
On that note, Alice was heinously out of character. The Alice of the books really does have a rather strong one, though she is only 7/7 and 6. She inquires, she makes quite tart observations, she's rather muddled but puts some effort into working through it, she likes showing off her knowledge...she's nowhere to be found. I don't know where Generic McGrrrrlPower came from, but not from Alice, that I'll wager. She rather is the wrong Alice, the way they keep saying. She's certainly not the right one.
Don't get me started on the Victorian frame story. For one thing, if it's before 1888, she can't own nouns per English law. It's rather difficult to be an independent businesswoman under the circs. But that is such universal fail that I will leave it lie and go back to Wonderland.
When something not in the book shows up it's horrifically uninspired and generic, all the dialogue plods horribly whenever it's not a quote and often when it is because one can only do so much, none of the most entertaining episodes or characters appear...Alice isn't the only one to have lost her muchness, thank you Mr. Hatter. The entire damn place is all but muchness-free!
One last unbearable thing: they call the monster the Jabberwocky. Every. Damn. Time. The poem is Jabberwocky; the monster is the Jabberwock! I wanted to kill them all! A lot!
In sum: considering that Alice in Wonderland is a big old trope-subverting fest, I think I was justified in expecting to see some tropes subverted rather than played deadly, painfully, misogynistically straight. Boy, was I ever disappointed.
Now I want to take the same basic plot and write it in a not-suck fashion. Which pushes my Alice book ideas up to three. This could be a problem.
This entry also posted at http://cygna-hime.dreamwidth.org/363036.html, where
people thought it worth discussing.
Review contains spoilers as a matter of course. Be the chamber so advised.
It was pretty. It was very pretty, even though I always have extra trouble focusing in 3D -- the focal length problem with wearing the 3D goggles over real glasses. But the real glasses are, as we say, non-optional, so whatever. It was pretty.
It was, however, HORRIBLE. I mean, as an Alice fan of some standing, who loves her Annotated Alice to bits and can recite all of Jabberwocky from memory, it was a feast of pain. PAIN I tell you.
But first, before I get down to the nitpicking, the big thing.
Thanks for the punch in the face, Mr. Burton. Really. What I needed in life was more movies with the message that the unattractive, red-headed elder sister who's always the first one to get angry is an evil and pathetic person who deserves no respect and is always in the wrong. I've never heard that one before. It's good to know that those poor, benighted attractive, charismatic, NORMAL blonde girls in the world will have their egos boosted at the expense of mine. They never get to be the good guys, after all.
I cannot be the only one left with the distinct impression that the Red Queen was right about the White Queen, who is in fact a manipulative fake-sugar bitch of the first order. I mean, beautiful castle, beautiful sparkly dress, beautiful unbound yet perfectly tame tresses, animals love her, never has to do her own fighting, and has sworn an oath to harm no living creature? Either she's faking it or she's a Mary Sue, which is in many ways exactly like being a manipulative fake-sugar bitch of the first order. I mean, seriously? Of course, I was biased against her for basic real-world which-character-is-identifiable-with-for-me reasons, but also for reasons that follow.
On that note, all the Wonderlanders are all wrong. All. Wrong. Beginning, in fact, with the White Queen, who is much more likable and interesting as a disorganized, scatterbrained, dowdy old sheep of fifty-odd. I don't know who this teenager is, but I have every reason to presume she killed the real White Queen and took her place. And moving on to the Red Queen of Hearts, which ticked me off because CHARACTER CONFLATION FOR THE LOSE. The Red Queen is an ultimately kindly old termagant Alice shakes into a kitten at the end, while the Queen of Hearts is the arrogant short-tempered one with a tendency to order executions when she can't think of anything else to say. They are quite different. The Knave isn't much of a Knave, at that. A cad, perhaps, but not a Knave.
For that matter, if they'd been able to decide if we were playing chess or cards it would have been ideal. The chess pieces mostly got the shaft, at that -- no White Knight, no White King, no Red King (unless the one the RQoH killed was in fact the RKoH, in which case fail also on that account), not even Lily the white pawn whom Alice replaces. And of course no Duchess, no Mock Turtle, no Humpty-Dumpty, no Bill the lizard, no Walrus and the Carpenter...
And no puns. Or rather, the tiredest and least entertaining puns taken out helter-skelter out of context and without anything to make them fun other than nostalgia. And very little of the poetry, only a bit out of Jabberwocky with the lines all out of order. And it's never explained how by any stretch one could describe Alice as a beamish boy.
On that note, Alice was heinously out of character. The Alice of the books really does have a rather strong one, though she is only 7/7 and 6. She inquires, she makes quite tart observations, she's rather muddled but puts some effort into working through it, she likes showing off her knowledge...she's nowhere to be found. I don't know where Generic McGrrrrlPower came from, but not from Alice, that I'll wager. She rather is the wrong Alice, the way they keep saying. She's certainly not the right one.
Don't get me started on the Victorian frame story. For one thing, if it's before 1888, she can't own nouns per English law. It's rather difficult to be an independent businesswoman under the circs. But that is such universal fail that I will leave it lie and go back to Wonderland.
When something not in the book shows up it's horrifically uninspired and generic, all the dialogue plods horribly whenever it's not a quote and often when it is because one can only do so much, none of the most entertaining episodes or characters appear...Alice isn't the only one to have lost her muchness, thank you Mr. Hatter. The entire damn place is all but muchness-free!
One last unbearable thing: they call the monster the Jabberwocky. Every. Damn. Time. The poem is Jabberwocky; the monster is the Jabberwock! I wanted to kill them all! A lot!
In sum: considering that Alice in Wonderland is a big old trope-subverting fest, I think I was justified in expecting to see some tropes subverted rather than played deadly, painfully, misogynistically straight. Boy, was I ever disappointed.
Now I want to take the same basic plot and write it in a not-suck fashion. Which pushes my Alice book ideas up to three. This could be a problem.
This entry also posted at http://cygna-hime.dreamwidth.org/363036.html, where
people thought it worth discussing.