I saw Tim Burton's Alice last night. For the first hour and fifty minutes, it's an aesthetically beautiful, charming and interesting film - slightly Disneyfied Tim Burton.
The last ten minutes is a disaster: a rushed and formulaic climax followed by some vomit-making self-help bullshit. Though as Alice ends up spearheading her deceased father's company's push to trade in China, roughly in the 1860s, I think it's safe to assume that she's pushing opium on the Chinese (historically accurate).
As to the 3D: entrancing for a few minutes, but then it generally faded in my interest, with the occasional annoying moment where a shot is composed solely to show off the technology rather than because it's integral to the plot.
I did enjoy it, but it's definitely not up to Burton's usual standard. Helena Bonham Carter's in it though, and she's always worth watching.
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I had the opportunity to see a Tim Burton retrospective at MoMA before going to the film. Me and my friend were astonished at what is in this man's head and instantly understood why he keeps drawing even through TV interviews: if he stops, he'll simply explode with all those countless ideas and images.
The next day we went to see the film. I almost cried. These people seriously use Carroll's characters to make a war movie in which the Just War is as innocent and white as the Queen who announces it. Then, because there is so much time to kill and fill with Burton's imagery, they imply a romance between Alice and the Hatter. Hollywoodisation. And finally they top it all off with a five minute moral of the story. All of this would never have come anywhere NEAR Carroll's Alice. But apart from destroying any trace of wonder, it's the film's political statements that make me sick. Political propaganda at its best. And we even pay for it!
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