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Alice in Wonderland (2010)
"Perhaps the most surprising thing about Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland is that it has taken him almost 30 years to be able to make it..." - Ethan Alter
Introduction
The latest Alice adaptation, Tim Burton’s in 2010, is perhaps the furthest of all the adaptations from Carroll’s original. Burton’s Alice, trying to freshen up a 150-year-old story, picks up the story some years after Alice wakes up, imagining a grown-up Alice who finds herself once again in Wonderland when she flees a marriage proposal. Only this Wonderland is a dystopic and nightmarish place, requiring Alice to swoop in and heroically save the inhabitants. The scope of the film is enormous, containing many elements from both Wonderland and Looking Glass, featuring especially the nonsense poem “Jabberwocky.” While it would seem that Burton’s penchant for the dark and the macabre would mesh nicely with the violence and absurdity in Carroll’s Wonderland, most critics felt short-changed. Lisa Mullen calls it “a frustrating experience for fans of Burton and of Alice, who might have hoped for something extravagantly surreal and majestically eccentric” (Sight and Sound). Todd Rigney also complained that the “problem is, Alice in Wonderland [i.e. Burton’s film] just isn’t very exciting. There’s plenty of fast, light-hearted action on-tap…unfortunately, there are simply too many ideas and way too many characters in Linda Woolverton’s overly ambitious script, forcing Burton to fill our cinematic plates with more than we could possibly hope to consume in one viewing” (beyondHollywood.com). But leaving aside the question of whether or not it is a good adaptation, Burton does choose to highlight some rather refreshingly different themes in his adaptation. For instance, the feminist theme of the film, in which a young woman flees from the subservience of marriage to a world where she can defeat a monster in gleaming armor, is not at all subtle. In addition, Burton greatly expands the role of the Mad Hatter (played by Johnny Depp) highlighting the burden of madness and mental instability, instead of simply laughing him off. Below are a few short clips from the film, including the theatrical trailer, Alice’s encounters with the Caterpillar and the Cheshire Cat, and the Mad Tea Party.
Clips
Trailer
Alice meets the Caterpillar (Alan Rickman)
Alice meets the Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry)
A Mad Tea Party Clip (Johnny Depp)
Credits
Directed by: Tim Burton
Produced by: Richard D. Zanuck, Joe Roth, Suzanne Todd, Jennifer Todd
Screenplay by: Linda Woolverton Based on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Crispin Glover, Matt Lucas, Stephen Fry
Music by: Danny Elfman
Cinematography: Dariusz Wolski
Editing by: Chris Lebenzon
Distributed by: Walt Disney Pictures
Release date(s): February 25, 2010 (London); March 5, 2010
Running time: 108 minutes
Country: United States
Gross revenue: $1,024,299,722
Links
Official Website from Disney
Wikipedia
Review from Beyond Hollywood.com
Review from the Guardian (UK)
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