Alice in Wonderland

This one is way late I know! I just noticed Alice on instant play on netflix so I decided to jump on it. When this was in theatres it was one of those impulse kind of movies for me, which, in general, is either a sign that the advertising campaign is on point, that the movie seems very intriguing, or a combination of both. I wanted to see it because it intrigued me and it looked awesome. Now, I'm not usually one to put much stock in the words of most critics when a movie first comes out, but I must admit, critics did make me pass on this one in the beginning. Hopefully you get the sense that I wasn't particularly sold on this movie in any legitimate way. Tim Burton has kind of become a cold subject to me, he pigeon-holed himself into a very predictable genre and in doing so it has almost turned into a joke. Now I'm not going to go as far and say that Alice breaks his mold, but I will say that I was pleasantly surprised by it. Visually, this movie was inescapably brilliant. The only thing I regret about the visuals is not being able to have seen them in 3D. Story-wise, this movie was alright. I did enjoy the story but to be perfectly honest there wasn't that much to it and I feel like it sacrificed development in some areas for graphics. The plot was pretty simple and it only really hinged on a few key moments. In my opinion this was also one of it's pitfalls as its lack of events really did slow it down. I wouldn't say I was bored, but it was by no means a nail-biter. Musically this movie really impressed me. I was surprised by the scope of Elfman's score and really by how epic and yet lightly wonderful it managed to be. This, at least in part, having to do with Elfman's implied pigeon-holing (although not nearly as notably) along with Burton. The acting was decent, Alice performed well and Johnny Depp played a good role as always. I think what I liked most about this film was how well (at times) it was able to shrug itself off with the sort of strange detachment and madness that was characteristic of the original Wonderland. This, though, as seemed to be the dual-standard of the movie, was also a weakness as it was not able to keep it up throughout the whole film. All in all this was a better movie than I expected even if it wasn't perfect. Alice in Wonderland gets an 8/10.