Movie Review

Alice In Wonderland(2010) Is Straight Like Pasta, Minus The Taste

I wouldn’t call Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland a disappointment. But this one has a script that is straight like pasta, not in taste, however.

A composite of Lewis Carroll's Victorian fantasy novels, 'Alice in Wonderland' and 'Through the Looking-Glass', the movie opens with the engagement party of Alice (Mia Wasikowska)and Hamish (Geraldine James), a dandy and fastidious young gentleman. I must confess watching his perennial scowling face had given me a hope of some real grinning moment, which, however did not realize.

Alice gets strayed from Hamish and people who surrounded her and follows a rabbit. She falls down to a hole to find herself in the Wonderland aka Underland. While she feels she is still under delusion, nothing helps the old anthropomorphic friends to cure the air of distrust about Alice. The good inhabitants, save Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp, doubt whether it is the same Alice they had met years before.

The magical Underland has a futurist scroll which details the historical timeline of land. It hails Alice as the saver of the kingdom of Underland from the clutches of evil Red Queen. To this, she has to slay the Jabberwocky, a gigantic dragon-like creature and restore the kingdom to the banished White Queen (Anne Hathaway) the blood-sister of the reigning queen.

Can the day-dreaming Alice slay the gigantic Jabberwocky and set the kingdom free? Will she return to her own world and answer some the questions about her own life? And, this forms the later half of the story.
To sum up, the memories of this mediocrity hardly lingers as you step out of the movie hall.

A word about performances.
Alice (Mia Wasikowska) is charming and makes a statement with her expressionless expression like Bella in the Twilight series, minus attitude. Blame it on the script, Hatter doesn't seem to amuse you with his crazy antics and embarrassingly falls flat in displaying emotion. Whoever told the Hatter was a visual treat was lying to you. In fact, it is the Red Queen, Tweedledum and Tweedledee and even Hamish who rock you with some laughter every time they pop on the screen.
Did I miss out someone? Oh yes, the White Queen (Anne Hathaway). Though the character may lack the punch still provides a shot of laughter, thanks to her expressions and that secret recipe to make Alice short.

Music
Danny Elfman infuses life into a movie otherwise forgotten with his marvelous piece of music. However the background melody is heavily underutilized throughout the film. The music track “Tripping out, spinning around” by Avril Lavingne is a wonderful gift from this movie to all the pop music buffs and for wannabe singers, try this song for some music audition. :)