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Tim Burton was born to bring Alice in Wonderland to the big screen. Ironically, his version of the Victorian text plays more like The Wizard of Oz than a Lewis Carroll adaptation. On the day of her engagement party, the 19-year-old Alice (a nicely understated Mia Wasikowska) is lead by a white-gloved rabbit to an alternate reality that looks strangely familiar--she's been dreaming about it since she was 6 years old. Stranded in a hall of doors, she sips from a potion that makes her shrink and nibbles on a cake that makes her grow. Once she gets the balance right, she walks through the door that leads her to Tweedledum and Tweedledee (Matt Lucas), the Dormouse (Barbara Windsor), the Blue Caterpillar (Alan Rickman), and the Cheshire Cat (a delightful Stephen Fry), who inform her that only she can free them from the wrath of the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter channeling Bette Davis) by slaying the Jabberwocky. To pull off the feat, she teams up with the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp in glam-rock garb), rebel bloodhound Bayard (Timothy Spall), and Red's sweet sister, the White Queen (Anne Hathaway in goth-rock makeup). While Red welcomes Alice with open arms, she plans an execution for the hat-maker when he displeases her ("Off with his head!"). Drawing from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, Burton creates a candy-colored action-adventure tale with a feminist twist. If it drags towards the end, his 3-D extravaganza still offers a trippy good time with a poignant aftertaste. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
Stills from Alice in Wonderland
Product Description
Tumble down the rabbit hole with Alice for a fantastical adventure from Walt Disney Pictures and Tim Burton. Inviting and magical, ALICE IN WONDERLAND is an imaginative new twist on one of the most beloved stories of all time. Alice (Mia Wasikowska), now 19 years old, returns to the whimsical world she first entered as a child and embarks on a journey to discover her true destiny. This Wonderland is a world beyond your imagination and unlike anything you've seen before. The extraordinary characters you've loved come to life richer and more colorful than ever. There's the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), the White Queen (Anne Hathaway), the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter), the White Rabbit (Michael Sheen) and more. A triumphant cinematic experience -- ALICE IN WONDERLAND is an incredible feast for your eyes, ears and heart that will captivate audiences of all sizes.
Review
Alice in Wonderland Trivia
Depp s Designs:Actor Johnny Depp goes through ample preparation for each of his roles and preparing to play the Mad Hatter was no different. Long before production began, the actor began doing watercolor paintings of what the Mad Hatter might look like, discovering later that his vision was quite similar to direct Tim Burton s.
Mad Hatter Mood Ring:The Mad Hatter suffers from mercury poisoning, a common and unfortunate condition of many hatters of the time who use the chemical regularly for their craft. Depp and Burton elevated this Hatter s madness by literally showcasing the character s man mad mood swings in his makeup and wardrobe, creating a virtual human mood ring.
Changes: Mia Wasikowska who plays Alice is five feet four inches in real life but Alice changes size throughout the course of her adventures in Wonderland, ranging from six inches to two feet to eight-and-a-half feet, to a maximum of 20 feet tall. The production worked hard to use practical methods rather than special effects and often it was a case of putting Alice on an apple box to make her taller than everyone else.
Drink Me:The potion Alice drinks to shrink is called Pishsolver. The cake she eats to grow is called Upelkuchen.
Sweet and Sour:Actress Anne Hathaway, who portrays the White Queen in Alice in Wonderland, decided that her representation of the character wouldn t be completely vanilla. The White Queen comes from the same gene pool as the evil Red Queen, after all, so Hathaway envisioned a punk rock vegan pacifist and was inspired by Blondie, Greta Garbo, Dan Flavin and Norma Desmond.
Futter What?Futterwacken is the term used to describe the Underlanders dance of unbridled joy. Composer Danny Elfman was stumped when it came to creating the music for the dance. He wrote four different pieces for the director, each fun, unique and, as Elfman says, pushing the bounds of what could be acceptable.
Two Tweedles:Actor Matt Lucas was tapped to play both Tweedles, rotund twin brothers who constantly disagree with each other and whose confusing chatter makes little sense to anyone but themselves. Lucas, however, was unable to play Tweedledee and Tweedledum at the same time (for some reason). Actor Ethan Cohen was called on to portray Dum to Lucas Dee (or vice versa) during filming, but will never actually appear on screen.
Bandersnatch?This disgusting, drooling, foul-smelling creature has a big filthy body and the squashed, teeth-baring face of a rabid bulldog., ISBN13: B003E48AYC ISBN10: B003E48AYC Material Type: blu_ray