Where Alice Kicks Some Butt

"Have I gone mad?"

"I'm afraid so. You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are"

Saturday morning saw three of us traipsing along the 2nd floor of the mall headed towards the darkened walls of the cineplex, where we were supposed to watch Alice in Wonderland, a well loved child's tale, brought to life to tease your visual and auditory senses with colour, strange characters and well spoken lines. It was never part of the plan (I had reserved my very limited movie watching for Thundercats), but with the knowledge that it was directed by Tim Burton, and had Helena Bonham Carter AND Johnny Depp as part of the cast, it would be crazy to give it a miss for any reason unless you're physically incapable of going to the theatres or dead.

It has been said that the movie was below expectation (what kind?), but I beg to differ. I found it enjoyable, and the characters endearing, especially the Red Queen (HBC), who despite her evilness, displayed a vulnerable side when all she really thought she wanted was to be loved. Besides, she had this particularly nonchalant manner of saying "Off with 'er 'ead" which added so much charm to a character you should hate. Another lovable character was the Hatter (Johnny Depp) despite the fact that he reminded me of Madonna when looked at certain angles, especially the eyes - for some reason. His loyalty to the White Queen and saving the Underland (which sounds pretty much like Wonderland, don't you think?) is extremely commendable, and it was played in such a way that you just cannot help liking him.

For reasons owed to *good book karma, we actually have a copy of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass at home although I don't ever recall reading either of the books (I would have, though, seeing that I never left any books in the house unread) and therefore cannot remember what the real story was like. I did like that the fact that the now grown up Alice was accused of losing her 'muchness' but seemed to have been able to slay the Jabberwocky despite not being certain about it. It clearly shows how having a good imagination helps. I should know... having spent countless hours nurturing mine when I was left to own devices when younger.

However, there was one extremely irritating character in the movie, the White Queen (played terribly by Anne Hathaway) who probably acted assuming that she was either in a mime, or in stop motion animation (I find it a bit hard to explain what I mean here) She looked terribly frightening as well.

All in all, it was alright as movies go... much more enjoyable and definitely much less regrettable that the movie I caught in January.

* When my mom was younger, each time they moved house, their dad would give away all their books to other people, and therefore, as kids we (my sis and I) were deprived of good reading materials (story books, mainly) as my parents were never really into buying fiction for us. And for some reason, neighbours and friends tended to give us books instead... and this book was one of those.

Picture flicked from some website. Quote at beginning of post flicked from the movie.