It's easy to forget that the first live-action remakes of Disney properties came out in the 90s, because the first big ones would come out in the 2010s. 2010 was such a game changing year for entertainment, for televised animation Adventure Time, Regular Show and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic began airing, for film there was Inception and The King's Speech, plus Disney seemed to be entering a second renaissance of sorts with the release of Tangled and Pixar's Toy Story 3. DreamWorks was starting off another franchise with How To Train Your Dragon, a film trilogy I desperately need to review some day, and Iron Man 2 was building up to the eventual Marvel Cinematic Universe. Video games had releases like Red Dead Redemption, StarCraft II, Halo: Reach, Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Super Meat Boy. It may be easy to forget, but in hindsight, 2010 might have been one of the most important years for entertainment, it did pave the way for quite a lot of things, including the Disney Live Action Remake.
Alice in Wonderland was not one of the movies I was looking forward to for this marathon, but I eventually bucked up and gave it a watch, and honestly it really wasn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be, because somehow it was worse. Not all that much worse, but if given the choice to watch this movie or take five slaps to the face like Barney Stinson, I'd take the facial slaps. It's a shame because I really do think a darker and more twisted take on Alice in Wonderland could totally be done, something that really added in some horrific aspects and put an emphasis on the darker tones. I dunno, maybe someday one of the guys who did Design work for ID Software or that Czech who does Claymation can do a better version. Ha, yeah, if you haven't quite figured both American McGee and Jan Švankmajer have both done darker takes on the Alice in Wonderland story, with Švankmajer's Alice releasing in 1988 and American McGee's Alice releasing in 2000, but Tim Burton has his own style, so it would be fascinating to see what he could do with the story, at least I thought so. That was before I watched this movie.
My first major issue with the movie is quite simple to state, it's boring. I figured that the opening scene was meant to be boring to kind of contrast to the zany and wacky stuff happening in wonderland, not that the mentality excuses the opening from being boring itself, but at least it's an explanation, but then again the rest of the movie is also just as boring. It's really odd because not only is this Alice in Wonderland, the definition of "Shouldn't be boring", but this is also a war movie. Yeah, one of the most brilliant decisions made in cinema, Alice in Wonderland, a WAR movie! Now someone's gonna say, "But Disney also made Treasure Island into a Science-Fiction movie, and Shakespeare into Kimba the White Lion, so why aren't you against those?" Easy, Treasure Planet is still an adventure film, like the original story, Lion King still has some remnants of a tragedy, like the original Hamlet, nothing in the original Lewis Carrol books ever implied that the story was best suited to have a war in there. Treasure Island can be put in space, and Hamlet can be told with lions, Alice should not fight in a war.
The movie is also not subtle about it. They really want you to know that people are dead in this movie. The Queen comments about eating one of the Frog Servants kids after sending him to be beheaded, the dormouse plucks out a monster's eye, and that is not done off camera, Alice cuts the Jabberwocky's head off and we see the body wiggle and writhe while it slowly dies. I get this is a PG movie, and a hard PG, but it really feels out of place. But why is this out of place and American McGee's Alice isn't? Well, I think ultimately it's because American McGee actually uses the story to explore themes of mental issues and trauma, which the story of Alice in Wonderland does lend itself too, at least it lends itself better to that than it does to a war. I'm fine with dark kids movies, but there is a limit to that, movies like Land Before Time or A Series of Unfortunate Events are dark, but not too unpleasant, and the unpleasant moments are balanced out by the happier moments. This movie doesn't really have that, it's just moments that are less unpleasant than others.
And the acting, oh my gosh the acting is pretty bad in this movie. No offense meant to Mia Wasikowska, I'm sure she does great performances in her other roles, but something was just not working with her role as Alice. There is a big moment where she is standing up for herself, not letting herself be told what to do and who to be, and she just does not sell it at all. Even when she realizes this isn't a dream, I absolutely do not believe she is the character. The other actors aren't that bad, but not all that great. I'm conflicted a bit on Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, he slips in and out of accents a lot and kind of does a lot of stuff I think would have been better if it was someone like Jim Carrey in that role. Plus, whoever designed the Red Queen in this movie succeeded in making something truly hideous, and not the good kind. This is like watching the life-sized cross between a Funko Pop and a Conan O'Brien caricature. Actually the design work as a whole is kind of disappointing too, like the Red Queen's castle has like, a couple of heart shapes and motifs in the design, but it looks like any other castle. No Expressionist influence, no excess use of the heart motifs, it just looked really plain and boring.
Yeah, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland is pretty bad, way too dark for it's own good and not interesting enough to justify it. Is this the worst Disney movie of 2010? Alongside The Sorcerer's Apprentice? I doubt it, but it's definitely one of the worst I've seen. This is very much a different take on the story, but it's a take that does not work. I know I'm only two movies into this marathon, but I'm ready to call this one of the worst of the bunch, but as of now we have seventeen more movies to get through, counting both Peter Pan and Wendy and The Little Mermaid 2023, so it may have some competition, but it is only fitting that this movie really kicked off the Live Action Remake trend, since it was the omen that this trend was gonna suck. Well, that's done, it looks like Maleficent is next on the docket, another one that I'm not looking forward to, but at the very least Sleeping Beauty isn't a movie I hold close, so I may end up liking it. We'll wait and see.
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