What's Up

I caught a showing of Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” at the Kingston Firehouse this weekend and thought it was sort of… bland.
I’m usually a subscriber to the Tim Burton point-of-view: His quiet, colorful capturing of Johnny Depp as Edward Scissorhands, a misfit with a penchant for otherworldly hairstyling in an otherwise manufactured society; his playful creeper “Beetle Juice,” a fun romp with the undead that culminates in an impossibly zany dinner scenario; “Sleepy Hollow,” a tale told in ghostly muted tones, almost as if the characters jumped right from the sepia pages of a photograph; the magical “Big Fish” and the deliciously evil “Sweeney Todd.”
But Burton’s “Alice” missed that indescribable something for which he has become so well-loved. Devoid of cleverness, it came off surprisingly flat, as if Burton’s vision was somehow not completely realized. I wish more arch had been given to the character of Alice, and more realism given to the White Queen (Anne Hathaway), who flitted uncomfortably about the screen poised in a kind of regal tension. And if only we knew why Helena Bonham Carter’s Red Queen has such an oddly shaped head? I suppose the film is entertaining enough — it took in $116 million this weekend — but let’s hope this isn’t the story on record for newcomers to the Alice tale.