Anorex[st]ics #77 and Alice in Wonderland Review

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by Tiger Lilly

Why is a ninja cow like a stick figure?

Dad and I went to see Alice in Wonderland in 3D on Friday. It being a Tim Burton film with Anne Hathaway and Johnny Depp (among other good actors), I was expecting great things.

Great prices is what we got (great meaning big in this instance). A whopping $25 for two tickets. Of course, we were seeing it in 3D, and of course, it wasn’t a matinee.

I’m not saying it was a bad movie. It was a very good movie, but one, I think, better rented from Netflix/Blockbuster/your local movie rental. And here are my reasons:

3D effects did absolutely nothing for it. It was hard to focus with the glasses on, and it made the screen very dark, so you couldn’t see probably a third of what was going on. It would have been much better in 2D. The only place where I really noticed the 3D was at the very, very end where a certain butterfly flies out at your face and eats your brains.
You also couldn’t understand what they were saying half the time. It was muttered, jumbled, muffled, and just generally gibberish. Sound quality: very poor. This may have been the fault of the theater, but at least if you rent it, you’ll be able to use subtitles.
It cost $25 to get in.

There were a few flaws with the movie itself, too. While the acting was good, and wasn’t over-the-top, Burton didn’t go deep enough into the story. It had most of the things you would expect from Alice in Wonderland, but it just felt a little lacking. Burton also played up the Mad Hatter’s part while playing Alice’s down. Not that I’m complaining too much about that, however, because the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat were my favourite characters. I thought that as long as Burton was emphasizing secondary characters the Cheshire Cat could have used more screen time. The movie was two hours long, would it have killed Burton to include maybe ten more minutes of kitty power? Sorry, getting off-topic.
Oh, and Alice seems to suffer from a case of Rebellious Princess Syndrome.

Now for the good stuff.
Helena Bonham Carter was excellent as the Red Queen. Nobody could shout, “Off with his head!” quite as authoritatively – but also as casually – as she could.
Johnny Depp (the Mad Hatter) was also good, but this probably wasn’t one of his best parts. I loved his tendency to start a very insistent ramble until somebody cried, “Hatter!”, at which he would kind of choke and end with a high-pitched, “-fiz! …I’m alright.”
The, “Um. From Umbridge/Umbrage/Umbrige/howeveryouwanttospellit,” part was great, as well.
The Cheshire Cat shares my affinity for hats.
The White Queen was wonderfully iffy. She seemed to be on the good side, but she had her devilry moments… I think she enjoyed listing off the disgusting ingredients to a certain potion just a little too much… especially when saying, “Buttered fingers…” while drawing in a deep breath.

All in all, I would rate this movie probably 2 1/2 out of four stars. If you are interested in this type of movie, I would recommend it, but only as a rental.

I created stick art of the cast for you peeps (I would have included Stain and Tweedledee/dum, but I didn’t have space without it looking odd):
Alice in Wonderland Stick cast

And, finally, the moment you’ve all been waiting for (hm, they seem to be pointing at Airhead over there…):

Anorex[st]ics Inaneymous 077

I hope you’ve enjoyed this shooper shpecial preshentation.
Ciao for now.

10 thoughts on “Anorex[st]ics #77 and Alice in Wonderland Review”

  1. That was a good review. I actually found myself checking my watch a couple of times during the movie “experience”. 3D technology hasn’t really advanced much since the 50s; it’s still a gimmick and it doesn’t enhance the story. I can’t understand the anticipation for 3D televisions.

    I don’t know if it was 3D that made the film look so dark or if it was just Burton’s style. They way they had Alice’s eyes made up (both as a little girl and a young woman) I guessed that Burton thought he was filming a live-action version of “The Corpse Bride”. I also thought the sound was poor but figured it was just my ears or maybe I was having trouble hearing because I couldn’t get Grace Slick’s voice out of my head (inside reference for old-timers). Interesting to note that your young ears had just as much trouble.

    Depp was good, with enough of his characteristic twitchiness to be familiar without overwhelming the character, but it was close. Anytime the viewer watches a character and thinks, “That’s Johnny Depp” instead of “That’s the Mad Hatter/Jack Sparrow/Willie Wonka” it’s not a good thing. I hope Depp’s next role is that of someone “normal” or this bit is going to grow real thin.

  2. Regarding the comic…

    Hmmm. We have a shape-shifting Super Stickman, part vampire and part super-hero. Sounds like the debut of an ongoing character!

  4. Yeah, but the movie Dracula had the whole change-into-a-bat thing working for him. And Super Stickman’s cape is very black.

    Edna: No capes!

  6. Regarding the review.
    Depp certainly has become a very good and entertaining actor.
    Depp was in one of the worst movies ever, that eating grape crap sammich movie; but on the bright side, it was retard Leo Cap’s best performance ever.

  9. I agree the movie should have been just as good w/out 3D effects, because it had an effect on my watching preference. Kitty Power should have been a more involved character, but in the 2nd part of the book it takes place when Alice returns to Wonderland and originally in the book Kitty really has no major influence as in part 1 of the book. There are numerous versions, but I’m giving it to you how the original author displays. Considering originally the Red Queen and Queen of Hearts are two separate characters and the Red Queen is originally a “Chess Piece”, Tim should have killed off the Queen of Hearts at the Red Queen’s mercy (and it should have been elaborated in vision as to what happened to the King of Hearts- it sounded like the Red Queen was a little jealous of her little sister). Astonishingly, Burton creatively made a combination of both The Red Queen/Queen of Hearts, and it created a battle versus Chess Pieces/Deck of Cards on a Chess Board. The price was a bit much considering how freakin’ expensive concession treats are, but Tim’s movies are worth watching. Can someone please suggest an updated remake of “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” starring- Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, circa 1962. I think Burton should take this movie under his wing, his vision would bring out the chiller in this psychological horror film. Anyhow, derailed, lol. What caught my attention about your article. I was searching for different meanings on thesaurus.com for the word “infuriating” and the synonym umbrage caught my attention and for some odd reason I thought of AinW and precisely decided to search if Tim had incorporated the word intentionally in his movie. Well what do you know, I come across your interesting and yet intriguing article. Well the word umbrage means “personal displeasure”. Funny is like you say no matter how you want to spell it. I’d like to think he meant to use the word umbrage, after all I would introduce umbrage if I met the Red Queen.
    CalTexFan

  10. I suppose we do need to take into consideration the time limit that he had to make a movie, but if it meant more details and story, an extra hour wouldn’t have been bad (it wasn’t even two hours in the first place).
    That’s why going to see the movie of a book is always a bittersweet experience.

    Thanks for reading!

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