Some movies make you want to cheer for the bad guy. Some do
this intentionally, in a Usual Suspects kind of way, and some do it
accidentally in an Alice in Wonderland kind of way.
I actually like the writings of Lewis Caroll, and think
Alice and her adventures are entertaining enough without delving too much into
psychosis and prepubescent muchness. Although the dresses that keep falling off
the main character don’t help keep those thoughts in their quiet midnight of
the mind.
But I have other bones to pick with this inconsistent picture.
Some of the characters are romping in camp, which is quirky
and almost entertaining, except for the other stoggedly (that’s “staid” and
“dogged” getting it on) serious ones, the principal player of whom, sadly, is
Alice herself. Almost Alice, mostly Alice, Alice in Chains, whomever.
The scenery is pretty, but completely lacking any realistic
framework and mostly it looks as though several sets were poached from the Lord
of the Rings trilogy. Except for the Red Queen’s palace, which is apparently
behind the tar pits in the shadow lands at the back of Mustafa’s pridelands.
The story is more or less the same as the original, with the
framework being that Alice’s father has died, leaving them more or less
destitute because his shares were bought by a business partner…for not enough money to keep the family afloat? And who wants to
shore up the alliance by marrying the brainy and beguiling Alice off to his pasty son (not that you should judge someone based on their skin conditions - I myself am a Victorian creamy, which is "pasty" in a much more posh voice).
First off, Alice, don’t trust a dude who was trying to pass
his genetic code to you down by way of his insipid spawn. And most definitely
do not go to CHINA with said individual hoping to expand your father’s business
vision – if the partner-guy was really interested in your father’s vision, he
would have paid a proper price for his investment so your mother wouldn’t be
hawking off your ovaries the minute you turn twenty.
But such two-faced supporting characters are not the only
inconsistency in this strange and twisted tale. In fact, there are so many
crazy little inaccuracies and discrepancies that I had trouble focusing on just
one thing to drive me crazy. But I came up with it.
The whole premise of the picture is that the Red Queen has gone crazy and ravaged Underland, while banishing her sister to what seems to be a very safe and secure hideout somewhere in Tokyo's Ueno garden during cherry blossom season. Red holds the kingdom in thrall (am I using that correctly?) and all the underlings, who resemble Disney characters after five weeks of heavy heroine use and Matt Lucas, are waiting for a champion to return in the form of a grown-up Alice who will slay the Jabberwocky and restore the White Queen to the throne.
Nota bene: looks like the White Queen's got it going on. I mean, she enjoys a great palace, clean clothes, running water, and the love of her disgruntled subjects while her sister does all the backbreaking work of day-to-day governing. Cry me a river, Whitey.
Somewhere towards the end of the picture, after we’ve been
to Rivendell and back (kid you not), we end up at Weathertop and Alice pulls
out Biter, while the Mad Hatter somehow got his badly manicured paws on Beater.
(Which now that I think about it, sounds a little dirty…) Anyhoo, the Red and
White Queens meet each other on the checkerboard of battle and the White Queen
tenderly begs Red to give up the crown peacefully. Red replies bitterly that
the crown is hers – she is entitled to it of course, since she is the elder
sister.
Back the cracked tea pot trolley up.
Are you telling me the Red Queen is the elder sister? That the crown is actually due to her based
on the succession of oldest issue of the full blood of the king?
What the hell, Alice?
All of a sudden, our fantasy-land coup (staged with the
necessary help of huge bullfrogs and carpucian monkeys) is moved from the realm
of trying to throw off Machiavelli to subverting Divine Right. And just because she's killed a few subjects and a nameless king.
Some people are so picky.
My other major issue with this flick is that Alice is spending this adventure nerving herself up to reject a marriage proposal because she doesn't want her life decided for her by people around her.
But the whole reason the White Rabbit came to get her is because the Oraculen
(either a kind of spider or an alien race from Star Trek) scroll, which looks
like it was stolen from Hyrule’s Public Library, depicts her lording it over the Jabberwocky on Frabjous Day (Calloo, Callay! I chortle!) So that Alice's original act of independence and self-government is rendered completely mute. She tries to stand up for herself and say no one is bossing her around, only to remain blind to the fact that she has no say in the matter. In fact, she’s bullied, bribed and
egged on until she defeats the Jabberwocky – Oppan Gandalf style – so that the
White Queen can banish her blood relative to a place where “no one will ever be
[her] friend.”
That’s telling her.
And then the Mad Hatter turns into CGI Michael Jackson.
I rarely want a movie to end just so I can start writing a
cynical message about it. But by the end of those very long 108 minutes, I was
really looking forward to climbing out of that ridiculous rabbit hole.
