Alice is Wonderful

I spent my Sunday afternoon taking in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland and I was totally delighted. The sets, the costumes, the make-up, the acting, and the 3-D....all amazing.

The story starts with a 20 year old Alice on the brink of being forced into a marriage she does not want. She panics and races off to think. She comes upon a rabbit who draws her to, you guessed it, a rabbit hole. And she is off to "Wonderland". She has no memory of being there before and has to be reacquainted with her old friends.

Wonderland does not look the same and has suffered terribly since the Red Queen has taken over. This is where Tim Burton's dark touch is magical. He does a fantastic job of showing the destroyed glory of what was once beautiful and mixing it with colorful flashbacks of when Alice visited as a little girl.

The costumes were superb. Colleen Atwood, one of my ultimate favorite people for costumes, designed everything for the movie. You may remember her for her award winning work on Chicago or most recently Nine, among many others.

The scenery, animation, and sets are just fantastic. They really grab you from the beginning and you loose sight of what is real and what is animated. I am not a huge 3-D fan as it sometimes makes me queasy, but it is so worth seeing this movie in 3-D. It is not over the top, in fact it is subtle at times, but it gives such a depth to the scenes.

The acting is incredible. I got completely lost in Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter. He plays the Hatter as fantastic combination of endearing and dark. Helena Bonham Carter, Tim Burton's real life partner, plays The Red Queen and is perfection.

Treat yourself to a movie night. The glasses, the popcorn, the whole thing. Sit back, relax, and be mesmerized by Tim Burton's creativity.

Cheers,

BBS






images borrowed from film are from Disney. Photographs of actors credited to Mary Ellen Mark.