I saw Alice in Wonderland after the game tonight....

There were some good things - the digital effects, were excellent....
The implication - never built upon - that the White Queen was every bit as bad as the Red, and a necromancer to boot....
Depp's Hatter did insert some of the symptoms of mercury poisoning, including a blown pupil....
Mia Wasikowska was not at all bad as Alice....
Alan Rickman's rumble is instantly recognizable... and not a bad choice for the role the character plays....
I like the fact that the film does not try to pretend that is the original adventures of Alice, but rather a return.

On the other hand I want to be locked in a room with the screenwriter chained by his ankle to a school desk, a history book open on that desk, and a baseball bat with a nail in clenched in my fist, so I can teach him the difference between 1800s and the 18th Century.

Charles L. Dodgson was a photographer for the love of squishy brown mud! He had pictures of Alice. The costumes in the film were from the 1790s to maybe 1820. By the time of Alice the China trade is well established, steamers are making bi-weekly trips to the orient, and the idea of being 'first to trade with China' would require a time machine! The worst part is that these could have been left out with no cost to the story - they were added in for no damned reason.

Also, would it have been too much work to learn Alice's last name? Her name was - not Alice Kingsley!

The Auld Grump, those who do learn from history are damned to see those who didn't repeat it....

Pretty good wrap-up, Grump.

There seemed to be many "almost there" moments...like it came so close to being great...kind of hard to describe.

I saw the Thursday test run of our 3D Imax print with me and two other people, a truly private screening....very nice. The masking was very nearly "flat" so it nearly filled the whole bloody 16X21m screen, amazing.

Depp's performance bothered me...he is usually quite reliable. The character could have been a real classic...but Depp was all over the place, giving him no real characteristics....just lots of weird wardrobe and makeup.

There were parts where I was egging it on to take off...but it just didn't. A good example was the scene where the hatter is showing his creations to the Red Queen, it could have been amazing with a parade of ever wackier hats....but it wasn't.

Anne Hathaway is a stone cold ultra babe and the scenes where she looks seductively into the camera made me go GGggllUuuuRrgggggg. Out loud.

She also did a fine acting job with a fairly small part. I laughed to hear Christopher Lee, Alice was great with thankless material, and the bookend scenes were great.

The end battle felt perfunctionary and annoying. No fun there.

To sum up I thought the visuals looked great in places but overall the film was quite disappointing to me.

Anyways enough rambling...

There were also scenes where the 3D effects seemed out of synch - resulting in odd red and blue outlines. Perhaps this was better in the IMax version.

The Auld Grump

*EDIT* Oh, and the obligatory dance routine at the end made me want to hit somebody. Preferably Jim Carrey, even though he had nothing to do with this film.... I may need to watch Ninth Gate, just to reset Depp in my head.

When Burton is good he is very, very good, but when he is not he is dull. This could have been soooo good! Both Carroll and Burton have threads of darkness in their fantasy.

When Burton allows his dark whimsy to take flight the results are evident in things like Nightmare Before Christmas, The Corpse Bride, and Edward Scissorhands. Then there are the times you get Batman Returns, Planet of the Apes, and Alice.... Though I think that the producer may have ridden this one, rather than giving Burton free reign. Too many 3D effects were only there for the sake of 3D effects. Jub Jub Bird, bolts of cloth, the Oraculum, and the damned piano - all being hurled at the hapless audience.

I watched Coraline again last night - Coraline would understand Alice, I think. Coraline is also 3D, but used to much better effect, and the characters are allowed to expand.

The Auld Grump, would it surprise anyone at all that I can recite Jabberwocky from memory?
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I didn't think so.