my very brief thoughts on.... 'Alice in Wonderland' (2010)

remember my review of 'Where the Wild Things Are'....? this might be a bit like that.... just so you know.

Tim Burton is a unique filmaker.... his vision is all his own.... and i can say that i've enjoyed just about everything he's ever done.... that also goes for Johnny Depp.... i've followed his career since '21 Jump Street'.... these two have made several films together and have been very successful ones at that.... but recently, it seems that you can't have one without the other.... i'm all for collaboration and a lot of times if you're working with the same people over and over you get good results.... however, after a while, you kind of want them to do some things seperately.... and that's the case here.... i thought it might be kind of neat to see what Tim Burton could do with this classic story.... and i'm always curious to see Johnny Depp's take on a character, especially one like the Mad Hatter.... sadly, the result was less than stellar....
i'm sure you all know the storyline of 'Alice in Wonderland'.... we've seen it retold several times.... but in this day and age, we finally have the technology to make some of the strange characters of the story come to life.... and i think that this was a valiant attempt.... however, it just had no soul.... it's like Tim Burton just phoned this one in.... it felt forced.... it seemed like he was trying too hard.... it was just way too heavy handed with the filmaking.... everything was quirky and over the top, like all of his movies.... everything was bright and colorful.... the music was excellent.... the special effects, however, were kind of sketchy.... and that surprised me, but that's not why i didn't care for this movie.... i tried really hard to enjoy it.... i felt kind of guilty for not liking it.... all in all, i only ended up giving this movie 2 out of 5 stars.... something i thought i'd never see from a Burton/Depp movie.... but that's not the end of it.... they've got more projects in the works.... and i just think that a little distance isn't always a bad thing.... so i hope that they see that someday and take a little break from each other.... because if not, i fear that we'll see more movies like this one.... movies that just feel like they were made for the sake of being made.... no other reason than that....

shame on you Tim Burton, shame on you.

please read the book rather than see this movie.... you're imagination is going to create something much more enjoyable then this movie could ever hope for