Alice In Wonderland

Rating: 6.7/.10

Genre: Fantasy

Overall value for time and money: 7.0/10

Let me just cut to the chase, a rather disappointing dark movie about the story of Alice in Wonderland, featuring Alice returning to wonderland to end the Red Queen's evil reign. It's like a sequel, dark sequel, which doesn't have much originality in it. Felt like a fusion of 3 movies; Avatar's world, Chronicles of Narnia's teenage warriors and Brother's Grim's darkness.

Johnny Depp acted as the stereotypical eccentric Mad Hatter (nothing refreshing, reminded me of his roles in Pirates of the Carribean and The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus), so did Helena Bonham Carter as the stereotypical fantasy evil Red Queen (reminded me of her roles in Harry Porter and Sweeney Todd). It's another collaboration of the 2 stars after Sweeny Todd and I must say, they go extremely well together, the most compatible oddball combination on screen.

Alice, though shining with her looks in this movie, felt kind of weak in performance, while Ann Hathway's role as the White Queen, though taking on a fresh bimbolic character, didn't work for me. The characters which I really liked were... CG-fied, if there's even such a word, the "fake" characters. Sadly.

It could be due to my movie experience as well, catching it 3D, a bad 3D experience since my 3D glasses "dimmed the lights" and made the supposedly bright colors of the movie look rather dull. Never knew 3D was such a double edged sword only until watching this movie. I might not regret missing out on Avatar's 3D after all...

Tim Burton added a couple of his trademarks, or cinematography flairs in this movie, one of the most prominent being his favourite "Tree". The leafless tree, with creepily extended branches was featured in this movie, a tree similar to the one in The Nightmare Before Christmas and almost identical to the one in Big Fish.

Still, this is a movie not to be missed, though not excellent, it still packs a good experience to lose oneself in the newly interpreted fantasy world of Alice in Wonderland amidst the hectic Singapore lifestyle.