Disney’s Alice Brings Extra Dimension
By Lee Hyo-won
Staff Reporter
It’s much ``muchier’’ when you fall into a rabbit hole for a second time, as the Mad Hatter might have said in his quirky parlance.
``Alice in Wonderland,’’ Disney’s first movie to be rendered in digital 3D, shows that eye-popping visuals, albeit some dizzying ones rendered through a pair of geeky glasses, is only the cherry on a mouthwatering ice cream sundae.
Tim Burton’s new take on the timeless Lewis Carroll saga is an audiovisual delight, but it is first and foremost grounded on deliciously zany, intensely original storytelling.
Of course it’s not the first time Disney has dreamed up Wonderland, but the new film succeeds in moving past the iconography of the hand-drawn 1951 classic.
It goes on to touch upon aspects of ``Through the Looking Glass,’’ the sequel to Carroll’s ``Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,’’ though in a way that ultimately feels like ``Pirates of the Caribbean’’ ― in all its fairytale magic and contemporary sensibility (the film soundtrack, for example, features grand orchestrated scores as well as rock tunes by Avril Lavigne).
Rather than focusing on the surreal delight of talking to verbose flowers or being caught in the midst of chess game politics, the journey here covers more ground within the map of the human ― or other sublime fairytale creature ― soul, with characters undergoing some serious self-analysis on their inner state. It’s Wonderland for slightly ``older’’ children, daring them to think of six impossible things before breakfast.
Here, Alice (played by the wide-eyed Mia Wasikowska) is still lovely and blonde, but she has grown up to wear a corseted blue dress (or one that is supposed to be) and to contemplate the marriage proposal of a lord. Unlike Keira Knightly in the pirate adventure, however, this young woman doesn’t even bother wearing a suffocating corset to faint in timely fashion to avoid awkward questions, because a white rabbit in a waist coat comes to her ``rescue.’’
Alice is convinced that her childhood encounter with the whimsical land was nothing but a figment of her imagination, and history repeats itself without hesitation, with an adrenaline-pumping bunny chase and freefall down a deep, dark hole. This iconic scene is representative of the film in general; all things familiar wear more speed, color and dimension to satiate today’s over-stimulated audience.
Our heroine is convinced she is in a dream as she helps herself to more servings of mystery potions and cake, unlocks a miniature door and reunites with odd characters who seem to know her: Tweedledee and Tweedledum, who are rounder than ever; the feisty Dormouse; a rather grouchy Caterpillar; the grinning Chershire Cat, who pulls off disappearing acts in front of your nose; and of course the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp).
In his role as the nutty hatter, Depp combines the fidgety demeanor of Captain Jack Sparrow with the bizarrely compelling charms of Edward Scissorhands as he repeatedly asks ``Why is a raven like a writing desk?’’
But Alice doesn’t have all day to solve riddles as menacing soldiers crash the tea party. She soon learns that Wonderland has fallen under the fascist reign of the evil Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter nails the role, large head and all), and moreover, that she holds the key to the restoration of the good White Queen (Anne Hathaway presents a new fairytale goddess, almost a spoof of Cate Blanchett’s elfish grace in ``The Lord of the Rings’’).
Now showing in theaters worldwide.