Alice in Wonderland (2010)

#2 - 2010 Box Office: Gross $334,191,110

You're invited to a very important date

At a lavish garden party, 19-year-old Alice (Mia Wasikowska) struggles to meet the expectations of her friends and family.  In order to escape an unwanted marriage proposal, Alice chases a rabbit in a waistcoat (Michael Sheen) and falls down a large hole.  Here, she reenters Underland, a world she visited when she was six and always thought was a dream (calling it "Wonderland").  The characters from her dream are all here—Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry), Caterpillar (Alan Rickman)—and they tell her she is destined to slay the Red Queen's (Helena Bonham Carter) Jabberwocky (Christopher Lee) and help the White Queen (Anne Hathaway) return to power.

Trivia (mostly courtesy of the IMDb)

• It is the second Walt Disney Pictures film ever to surpass the $1 billion mark, after Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
• On its first weekend, the film made $210.1 million worldwide, marking the largest opening ever for a movie not released during the summer or the holiday period
• Stayne (Crispin Glover) has only one eye, symbolising his being a representation of the Jack of Hearts
• Although Rickman was filmed while recording the Caterpillar's voice in a studio, his face was not composited onto the character's face as originally planned
• Director Tim Burton developed the story because he never felt an emotional connection to the original book, with its series of events about a girl wandering from one weird character to another
• Burton had lavender lenses fitted into his glasses to counteract the effect of constantly shooting on a green screen
• Before its release, Cineworld and several other UK cinema chains planned to boycott the film because of a reduction of the interval between cinema and DVD release from the usual 17 weeks to 12

Curiouser and curiouser

Tim Burton definitely has a style all his own.  When this was released last year, I saw it on the big screen and was amazed by its effects. However, I was bored by the story—there was about 15-20 minutes in the middle here on the rewatch I apparently slept through in theater.  And the second viewing wasn't any better than the first.  I see what Burton was attempting to do, creating an emotional connection, but it just didn't work for me; I was bored throughout.  The acting was decent—Lucas stood out in his amazing double turn as Tweedledee & Tweedledum and Bonham Carter & Wasikowska were both great, however Depp's wacky Mad Hatter wasn't exactly my cup of tea.

Ponch's Rating: