Take the blue pill

Let me preface this blog post by stating: I love the creative mind of Tim Burton. He brought some of my favorite movies into the world (Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Beetlejuice) and doesn't seem content to stop now.

However, that being said, I was sorely disappointed with my viewing of Alice in Wonderland last night. Nearly heartbroken.

The story of Alice is incredibly skewed and odd and it's all no wonder seeing as the author was high on more than just life when he wrote it. I read the story and his other, Through the Looking Glass. Very mind-numbingly trippy, I must say.

I had heard that the movie was a letdown, was less than its potential, but it didn't stop me from wanting to see it. Some people just don't understand great things when they see them. I eagerly awaited my turn on Netflix as the status changed from Very Long Wait to Short Wait to, "Oh my gosh, it's in the mail!" I popped in the disc last night and settled in for what I desperately wished would be an amazing trip.

It wasn't.

1) It was visually very beautiful and stimulating. It was mostly shot green-screen with lots and lots of CGI characters and distorted features...interesting and complex, yes, but I wanted more than just that.

2) Alice (Mia Wasikowska) was entertaining but lacked in facial expressions.

3) Johnny Depp did a deliciously creepy Scottish accent, but it was hard to follow why he would suddenly speak with it and then revert to his lispy tenor. His madness was understated, except when he spoke in the accent and then he was just scary. I thought he did a brilliant job being weird...hence why I also loved him as Willy Wonka because he was fantastically off his rocker and gave the best sidelong looks and dark glances.

4) Anne Hathaway. Disaster. She flitted about with her hands and arms floating around her, up and down, up and down, and spoke with a twitter. Constantly. Never for a reason, never stopping, never ceasing. It was not relevant to the story at all. Which I was saddened by, because I usually like her in her roles. To a certain degree.

5) Scenes did not flow together well. The storyline jumped from place to place and person to person. Names of characters were suddenly known without ever having been introduced. It's almost as if this was a sequel and we should have already seen the first one prior to this.

Dearest Tim Burton,

I looked at your imdb.com listing and noted that you are working on two movies with potential: Maleficent and The Addams Family, though why you are working on the latter, when the 1991 version of this movie with Anjelica Huston and Christina Ricci is still a brilliant movie, doesn't make sense to me. Please redeem yourself from Alice.

I will say that the possible brilliance of Maleficent is currently limitless and will slowly unearth as the project progresses.