Substitute “play tennis” for “sing” and you come face-to-face with Alice Marble, the great tennis player who lived from 1913 to 1990.
Alice through the looking glass review book movie#
Two stars out of four.I n the 1998 HBO movie The Rat Pack, the actress Ava Gardner, a Frank Sinatra ex-wife, still smitten but embittered, offers him a blunt character assessment. "Alice in Wonderland," a Walt Disney Pictures release, is rated PG for fantasy action/violence involving scary images and situations, and for a smoking caterpillar. Though Burton's film boasts some excellent performances, as the caterpillar says to our heroine, it's merely "almost Alice." The many moving parts - Anne Hathaway slides nicely into Burton-world as the White Queen, Crispin Glover plays the Knave of Hearts - nevertheless add up to less than a good "Alice." The 1933 version with Cary Grant and W.C. There is a trace of the been-there-done-that to Depp's somewhat rootless performance, but wishing for him to cut back on playing mad clowns would be like telling Fred Astaire to quit all that dancing. The Cheshire Cat (voiced by Stephen Fry) - whose handling is normally tantamount - passes curiously without energy, like a bow made out of courtesy.Īnd then there's the Mad Hatter, a role so befitting Johnny Depp (working with Burton for the seventh time) that it might seem too obvious for him. Danny Elfman's score keeps the mood dark. The incredibly tweaky March Hare (voiced by Paul Whitehouse) is also a joy.īut Burton has beefed up the original story so that it feels less personal and more like the many action films about young, maturing heroes who must slay a giant villain. There are elegant moments - the overhead shot of Alice shrinking into the billows of her dress, or the great, big slobbering tongue of the beastly Bandersnatch. Credit also goes to the visual effects of Ken Ralston and the costumes of Colleen Atwood. Much of its design is wonderfully imaginative - surely the biggest draw of the movie. It's not fuel for upright adulthood, but "the simple and loving heart of her childhood."īurton's film is not lacking whimsy. The take-home lesson of Carroll's tale is something quite different. By the end, she confidently returns to begin, of all things, a business endeavor in China. There's triumph over the "dominion over living things" practiced by the cruel, bigheaded Red Queen (a brilliantly thin-skinned Helena Bonham Carter), and there's Alice's girl power. I make the path," she says.īurton's "Alice" reflects today's times more than Carroll's era. The exchange with the smoking blue caterpillar (voiced by Alan Rickman) is less "Who-o-o are you-o-o?" and more about Alice proving herself - to the caterpillar and everyone else. Where the Alice of the 1865 book is confused and essentially on a journey of self-discovery, Burton's Alice is more sure of herself. Alice is beset by questions that she's "the wrong Alice." The tea party is more faded and ramshackle. This time, the plot is similar, but slightly different. She flees a white and pastel-colored reality (where she is being arranged with great orchestration to marry a man she disdains) and falls down the hole, which sits at the base of a tree that could very well be the same one from Burton's "Sleepy Hollow."Īlice doesn't remember her last trip to Wonderland. The film quickly fast forwards 13 years and Alice (played by the startlingly promising Mia Wasikowska, who previously impressed watchers of HBO's "In Treatment"), is lured back to Wonderland by the familiar, punctually paranoid rabbit (voiced by Michael Sheen).
Alice through the looking glass review book tv#
One does, though, get a bit queasy hearing of such classics "updated" as if they're local TV newscasts. It's a neat line and it's at the heart of Burton's 3-D version of Carroll's beloved book, which also draws heavily from its sequel, "Through the Looking-Glass." It was shot in 2-D, but transferred to 3-D afterward, and its effects are more distracting than spectacular. Her father tells her that her deranged dreams do indeed mean she's bonkers, but he assures, "All the best people are." We glimpse the prim, Victorian child of Carroll's tale in the film's opening as she's awakens from what sounds like her trip to Wonderland. Working from Linda Woolverton's very Hollywood screenplay adaptation of Lewis Carroll's classic tale, Burton shifts the story from a child Alice to a near-adult Alice, viewing her journey through a drearier, more dangerous looking-glass. In Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland," Alice has grown - not by "drink me" potion or "eat me" cake - into a 19-year-old girl. In this film publicity image released by Disney, Johnny Depp, left, Mia Wasikowska, center, and Anne Hathaway are shown in a scene from the film, 'Alice in Wonderland.'
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