Alice in Wonderland (2010)

Alice in Wonderland (2010)

7/10

Starring

Johnny Depp

Anne Hathaway

Helena Bonham Carter

Crispin Glover

Matt Lucas

Mia Wasikowska

Directed by Tim Burton

If you give Disney’s 2010 masterpiece a second viewing like I did, you will come to admire the powerful depiction, the dark sentiments and the wonderful twist they brought along to make this movie very tasteful.

All this dark gothic theme is what you will expect from a Tim Burton film, and he overdid himself in this movie, making it so good that even the 1951 Alice in Wonderland animation was not as good.

It is little wonder that this movie was a box-office sensation, and it was that wonder that made Disney invest in a second movie Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016), which ended up being a box-office loss and no where as good as this masterpiece.

There is much diversion from the story of Alice you will recall from the 1951 Alice in Wonderland animation also done by Disney. The movie plot serves more like a sequel to the animation and it is based on Lewis Carroll's stories of Alice taking on the Jabberworky.
Also, the plot will help you see why the second part of the movie is horrible as obvious plot holes and lack of continuity exist between the stories, more noticeably that of the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp).

Alice (Mia Wasikowska) is trying to avoid following the expected path laid ahead of her, which led her to run off. She sees and chases a rabbit wearing a blue waistcoat and accidentally tumbles right into a large rabbit hole under a tree.

She then lands in a strange room and had to take a portion to shrink herself and go through a door to emerge in a forest. There she is greeted by the White Rabbit, the Dormouse, Tweedledee and Tweedledum and others.

Seeing her they start to argue whether Alice is "the right Alice."

They continue the debate and were chased by the Red Queen's minions. Alice is told she is here in Underworld to save them from the Red Queen, while she believes she is dreaming and can't wait to wake up.

Now we are left to watch as she battles with the thought herself and moves along with events.

It was the success of this movie that led Disney to further develop more live-action adaptations of their Animated Classics. Disney has gone ahead to produce box-office successes in Maleficent (2014), Cinderella (2015), The Jungle Book (2016), and Beauty and the Beast (2017), and more of their animated series will also be developed soon later.

The movie actors were in a class of their own in this movie, with Johnny Depp pulling out a fantastic performance as expected. It was a pity the second movie did not deliver like the first. A runaway memorable performance was delivered by Mia Wasikowska and you will always enjoy this movie, for the fantastic performance and visual mastery it delivers.