Ledger

Issue date: 3/9/10 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Local Tacoma graffiti artists Pubs, Ksra, Foes, and Chuk spent about 40 hours in the last two weeks painting their rendition of the artwork of "Alice in Wonderland." Painted on the side of Satellite Coffee off of Market Street, the mural showcased each artist's work between the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat and the Red Queen.

I'm a huge Tim Burton fan. Three of his films I can easily put in my top ten, so naturally, I was excited when I heard he was directing an adaptation of "Alice in Wonderland." And then when I heard that they were going to release it in 3-D, I was even more excited because the last time I saw a movie in 3-D, it was "Nightmare Before Christmas." So was perfect!
Stop-motion animation works in 3-D because it's made from actual 3-D figures and filmed shot by shot. Stop-motion is enhanced by 3-D. But I must say that paying $13 for my ticket to see "Alice in Wonderland," put a damper on my film-going experience before I even sat down in my seat. Movie tickets are already expensive, and I feel like "Wonderland" would have been just as good, or even better, in mere 2-D.
I liked the film; I did. I didn't like it as much as I thought I would. But updating the story of Alice to 13 years in the future is something that I would expect Burton to do - making the story darker and wittier. Opening with a potential marriage proposal from a less-than-satisfactory suiter, Alice finds herself following the White Rabbit into a garden maze and into the rabbit hole. If you ask me, that would be a pretty good excuse for ditching the lame guy that your parents want you to marry. It's like she'd come back shouting, "I fell down a hole and started hallucinating that there were talking rabbits and a bitchy queen with a humungous head, OMG!" It would make you sound as mad as the Hatter, but "Alice in Wonderland" isn't supposed to be like real life. I did especially like how Johnny Depp played the Mad Hatter - as certainly bonkers. He wasn't just eccentric. He was actually really freaking crazy. And he did a corny dance called a "funderwhack," which was funny, but completely random. Of all the characters, the Hatter had the most depth, which is something that Burton tends to do. He gives one character a strong multidimensional personality and the rest of the characters not quite as much depth. But the little quirks that the supporting characters had like Tweedle Dee and Dum, the Caterpillar, the Cheshire Cat, and the White Queen were the aspects of the first story that Burton brought back to light.

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools