Many know of this famous childhood story originally written by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson in 1865 titled “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. The screenplay adaptation was written by Linda Woolverton, and it was based upon the Lewis Carroll books.
This is director Tim Burton’s take on the famous story. I think you will find it very Burton-like in many respects. It certainly has his style of film-making all over it. I don’t think some people will find it to be that appealing; however it will strike a note with fans of the novel and story. It certainly holds pretty true to how the book was written with some tweaks here and there.
Again, Tim Burton reunites with his longtime friends giving them roles in this particular story. This pairs Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen with Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter who both starred together in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) as well as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005). There are several other notable castings such as Crispin Glover as Stayne – Knave of Hearts, he is probably best known from other roles such as the character George McFly in Back to the Future (1985) as well as the sequels. Also he starred as Willard in the 2003 film Willard. Anne Hathaway appears in this as the White Queen sister to the Red Queen.
Finally, I will give my opinion of Alice who is the leading character after all; she was played by Australian actress Mia Wasikowska who was voted in Variety magazines top 10 actors to watch in 2008. I think you will find her performance in this quite acceptable, and she certainly did well enough to pull off the part as we see the antics of 19 year old Alice. Tim Burton captures the essence of Alice in some way and brings her to a CGI (Computer-generated imagery) filled screen of different creatures, backgrounds and other eye candy moments. Some of these includes the performance of Tweedledee and brother Tweedledum both played by Matt Lucas who brought the animated facial expressions to the parts.
British actor Stephen Fry appears as a cat in this known as Cheshire Cat. You might also recognize the voice of Michael Sheen as the White Rabbit. And the distinctive voice of the Blue Caterpillar is played by none other than Alan Rickman. Unforgettable Barbara Windsor is the voice of the Dormouse, Paul Whitehouse is the March Hare, Timothy Spall is Bayard, Marton Csokas is Charles Kingsleigh, and Tim Pigott-Smith is Lord Ascot.
I will go ahead and recommend catching this one while it’s still playing in the theatre, it has an element of fantasy and you are along for the ride with Alice as she adventures into the rabbit hole. You kind of know what to expect going into the theater to see this, and it was entertaining enough.
