Alice in Wonderland (2010) (3-D)

Alice in Wonderland (2010). Johnny Depp as Mad Hatter.

Liisa ihmemaassa / Alice i underlandet.
    US 2010. PC: Walt Disney Pictures presents - Roth Films / The Zanuck Company / Team Todd. P: Joe Roth, Jennifer Todd, Suzanne Todd, Richard D. Zanuck.
    D: Tim Burton. SC: Linda Woolverton – based on the books Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), Through the Looking Glass (1871) by Lewis Carroll. DP: Dariusz Wolski – negative format: 35 mm, Digital and HDCAM – digital intermediate 4K – Disney Digital 3-D – 1,85:1. PD: Robert Stromberg. Cost: Colleen Atwood. M: Danny Elfman. S: Steve Boeddeker. ED: Chris Lebenzon.
    C: Mia Wasikowska (Alice), Johnny Depp (Mad Hatter), Helena Bonham Carter (Red Queen), Anne Hathaway (White Queen), Crispin Glover (Stayne), Matt Lucas (Tweedledee / Tweedledum), Stephen Fry (Cheshire Cat's voice), Michael Sheen (White Rabbit's voice), Alan Rickman (Blue Caterpillar's voice), Barbara Windsor (Dormouse's voice), Paul Whitehouse (March Hare's voice), Timothy Spall (Bayard's voice), Marton Csokas (Charles Kingsleigh), Tim Pigott-Smith (Lord Ascot), Michael Gough (Dodo Bird's voice), Christopher Lee (Jabberwocky's voice).
    108 min
    Released by Walt Disney Motion Pictures Finland.
    Viewed as XPand Digital 3-D projection (with Finnish subtitles only) at Tennispalatsi 2, Helsinki, 22 May 2010.

1. The 3-D presentation was technically perfect.
2. Lewis Carroll's fairy-tales are well-known but Tim Burton and Linda Woolverton manage a fresh interpretation.
3. It brings a new perspective to Alice's story. She is now a young woman who returns to Wonderland one last time.
4. The blend of live action and animation is seamless and the design of the fantasy characters is original and wonderful.
5. Mia Wasikowska has a natural and original personality as the emancipated Alice who defends herself against Victorian convention.
6. Helena Bonham Carter is great fun as the evil Red Queen.
7. Johnny Depp is a genuinely weird Mad Hatter.
8.  Danny Elfman is at his best with a full and rich fantasy music score.
9. The colour palette of the film is unsuccessful. It is different from the bright colour gamut of the advertising copy. The colour of the movie is anti-realistic, it is fantasy colour, but there is not a sense of full colour. The film has a colourized look. There are even hints of the monochrome. Gray, cold, and blue hues are predominant. Warmth is missing. I had the feeling of looking at a world after a nuclear holocaust or ecocatastrophe. Might full and bright colour have looked too garish, and what we see is a compromise? Time and again I lifted my 3-D glasses and enjoyed for a while a brighter, more luminous image, more effective in close-ups where there is no 3-D.
10. I have been intrigued by cinema's obsession with the "cancelled wedding" theme. The structure of this film is built around a "cancelled betrothal". Alice rejects the arranged betrothal and declares independence in the funny conclusion after her return from Wonderland. She says what she thinks and will be a pioneering enterpreneur to go to China.