Blu-ray Review: Alice in Wonderland
Not great, but not bad... This film offers a mild diversion if needed
Alice in Wonderland is one of only six films to have ever reached the $1 billion mark in worldwide box-office receipts. Place it alongside fellow features in that category — Avatar, Titanic, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and The Dark Knight — and even if you like the film it is amazing it is the sixth member of a rather unique club. Along with Dead Man's Chest it is the second Disney film on the list and those two are really the only two you raise an eyebrow at and say, "Really? Those two managed to make more than $1 billion while so many other great films couldn't?" As much as we scrutinize box-office numbers, it goes to show they don't always tell the entire story.
All that said, I am not in the "I Hate Alice in Wonderland" core of critics, nor am I in the "I Love Alice in Wonderland" group. I'm more in the group that looks at it is a mild diversion and a film that will most likely be enjoyed by many families, while scoffed at by cinephiles and old school Tim Burton fans.
Much of the hatred for this film from certain online sectors, I presume comes from the fact that Burton seems to be recycling film after film, using the same set design, same actors, same color palettes and similar sounding Danny Elfman scores. After Burton and his jury at Cannes awarded Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives with the Palme d'Or, Peter Howell at the Toronto Star wrote how he believes Burton's jury awarded the film because Burton was "delighted to see other people taking chances that he's afraid to take himself." Hating on a director because he isn't making the film's you want him to make is dishonest. I have seen other people call Alice in Wonderland the worst film of the year, which is to say they obviously haven't seen Leap Year, Cop Out or Valentine's Day or several other films that hardly even strive for mediocrity, let alone greatness.
My biggest complaint about Burton's Wonderland is the lack of character development. Each character in the film seems to exist merely because the story calls for their involvement and even an attempt to create a back-story for the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) comes across as time not well spent. I'm more interested in a crazy character simply because he's crazy, and I would even argue the Hatter isn't all that crazy, just a bit eccentric and not even overly so. Depp portrayed Ed Wood and Raoul Duke as crazier than this guy. The Cheshire Cat was equally disappointing, despite being an excellently designed CG character. The March Hare was probably the craziest of the bunch, and the most enjoyable for that reason, but the level of fun I expected to get from this film never surfaced.
As for this Blu-ray, it does as good a job as can be expected though Disney's decision to convert this film to 3D in post is obvious as certain elements of the feature pop off the screen and distract from the scene taking place primarily due to a distracting inconsistency in depth of field. CG creatures float through the air, appearing to exist outside the feature itself. Obviously, this is a complaint targeted at the film alone, as the video presentation is top notch, but what else is to be expected from a nearly all-digital shoot, primarily shot on green screen and made of mostly digitally created backgrounds and characters. Perfect is really the only option, while the actual CG is another story.
The audio is equally impressive, as is often the case with Disney BD releases. It seems one of the many things the studio makes sure to master with the majority of their Blu-ray releases and this is no different. Fans of the film should be more than happy with the audio and video presentation, but if they were looking for anything more in terms of features than what is already available online you shouldn't expect much.
Disney did its very best to keep Alice in Wonderland in the online news cycle with several making of featurettes, most of which are included here. They aren't the exact same as they were online, but if you were to scour the making-of featurettes found right here you should be well into the featurettes offered in this set. It was, however, interesting to learn the Hatter's Futterwacken Dance was actually done by David 'Elsewhere' Bernal and not 100% CGI as I previously thought. The scene is still my most hated from the film, but that was interesting.
Otherwise, this Blu-ray release also comes with a DVD and Digital copy of the film.
Overall, no, I wouldn't suggest you add this to your collection unless you are already a big fan of the film. I imagine most of you will be satisfied watching this on ABC Family one day down the road or perhaps as a rental, but I just can't recommend this as a purchase.
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I'd say "Alice" was slightly above average, maybe a B- film. Better than POTC:DMC, at least. But box office numbers don't speak just for quality, but also for savvy advertising and crafty schedule placement. "Alice" was the first big 3D film after "Avatar" (11 weeks after, helping to bleed off most its competition), and also the first tentpole of 2010. People were over the moon about 3D, the wildly-likable Avatar being the only thing in short-term memory, so of course the next 3D movie was going to open big. Alice probably owes at least $40mil of its $112mil opening to Avatar.
As for its holds, Alice can take credit for that on its own. It had decent and consistent holds, but not surprisingly one way or the other. Had Avatar not existed, Alice would probably still have its 35% OW ratio. So without Avatar, I think it would have done:
$70mil OW
$200mil domestic
$600mil worldwide (I think it would have kept a similar worldwide/domestic ratio as well).
So even without Avatar, it probably would have done very well. It just wouldn't have made the $1bil club.
I hated Alice not because of Burton using the same style; in fact, I love his style, and love all his films but 2 (Alice and Planet of the Apes). Alice' biggest fault was its screenplay. As you said, character development is non-existent. The actual plot is like a quest game, with Alice going from place to place, just once in the whole movie making a decision to do something herself (and it didn't make any sense), and being an uninteresting and unrelatable character throughout. Depp and the character of Hatter were wasted. When the climactic battle started, it all looked like a poor man's Chronicles of Narnia.
And then the ending arrived. Alice, not changed at all, gets back, basically tells everyone to fuck off and secures herself a nice job traveling. That, coupled with everything I mentioned, and all the feminist bullshit that came before it, made me want to slap Linda Woolverton in the face. She was the writer of the brilliant Lion King, now she gets her hands on Alice in Wonderland, I mean it has to be great, right? But she absolutely freaking ruined it. I don't blame Burton nearly as much as her, and I don't blame any of the actors at all. In fact the supporting characters were the only good thing about the movie, and Mia Wasikowska did the best with what she was given. Everything else was horrible, even the visuals weren't anything special. It may not be the worst movie of the year, but it's the most disappointing film I've seen in theaters in 3 years. Because it truly had the potential to be the definite film version of Alice in Wonderland, and a fantasy masterpiece. It wasn't in a slightest bit.
Tim burton is a genuis ,yes there have been duds like planet of the aps and big fish but alice is not a masterpiece but it's visualy a work of art and it's the cliff notes to a great story it's solid i could see this a few times were i can't see any of those lord of the rings movies more than once . I am hard on deep but there are some moments of greatness very suttle moments even felt he played the mad hatter like he had a couple of personalities bi -polar or something i feel he is just brilliant , helena bonham carter wow she was great … yes i saw this with my third eye open and it was amazing…