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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

A shallow trip down the rabbit hole

alice

“Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” has been adapted for the screen so many times that each version of it must go out of its way to distinguish itself from previous incarnations. This — or at least the misguided solution chosen by screenwriter Linda Woolverton — might be part of the problem.

Presumably to step out of the shadows of previous versions, this “Wonderland” ignores the original story and fashions a new tale based solely on Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” poem. The result is a story that is so numbingly regimented that it resembles a choose-your-own-adventure book: “You have arrived at the Red Queen’s castle. To rescue the Mad Hatter, turn to page 32. To look for the vorpal sword, turn to page 63.”

While Burton’s quirks encourage rare spurts of brilliance — the Red Queen’s antics, the castles’ exteriors, the bizarre changes in gravity that Alice experiences upon entering Wonderland — his distinctively dark sensibilities do nothing to lift “Wonderland” off the ground.

As Alice accomplishes each step in her pre-determined path, it becomes increasingly clear that what feels like exposition is actually the movie. It’s always on the brink of becoming more intense, more innovative, more morbid, more anything — yet no amount of special effects, beautiful images or even Helena Bonham Carter’s special brand of hate/love craziness can move the film beyond its drowsy point-A-to-point-B single-mindedness.

It’s strange for a film with so many action sequences, showcased in blurry, unnecessary 3-D, to have so little energy. Even Alice herself seems fatigued; her status as a misfit comes more from flat dialogue than from any emotion.

In the end, “Wonderland” lacks the heart of Burton’s best films, and though the visuals are good, they aren’t used with the same effectiveness as in his previous work. This version of Carroll’s story would’ve made more sense as a drawing, a place to showcase a single pleasing image. Instead, what we have is a film that was better in theory than it is in execution.

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