Monday, March 8, 2010

Movie Review:Alice In Wonderland

I first found about Alice in Wonderland as a Disney animated flick. When I first saw it, I never understand the point of the story. Despite how colorful Disney pulled it off, I can only see Alice who went to Wonderland and back. I later found out that Disney compressed the two books written by Lewis Carol. In college,I took up Psychology. Alice is an image or model for day dreaming and imaginary friendships that child psychologists dreaded. For the right reasons, child psychologists sees this as means for the child to escape the reality that affects a child and the factors that motivates them. A child may encounters problems in his/her immediate "world" and creates a new one. For the wrong reasons, psychologists tend also to see this deviantly and thus the child is deprived from all forms and potentials of creativity because the teachers, other children and even parents don't approved of it. Here's how I mirror this on the story. In the animated flick, Alice doesn't want to study so she "escapes" to Wonderland upon seeing the White Rabbit. In the sequel Tim Burton made, Alice tried to escape the pressures she was expected from everyone around her that she escapes back to Wonderland upon seeing the White Rabbit again. Burton,in my observation,tried to make it as close to what Lewis Carol originally sees his Wonderland. The Alice phenomenon has also a philosophical content. It also tells you how do you see the world around you. That is why in the first Matrix movie, Morpheus used the Alice model when he was discussing with Neo. The film's 3D is an added attraction which makes it interacts with the viewers that they are also going to "Underland" with Alice.

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The Queen of Hearts or the Red Queen is now seen as the villain rather than an obstacle like she portrayed in the animated flick. There is also the existence of a prophecy regarding Alice. I see the prophecy also a philosophical thought. Alice shouldn't be dictated by her surroundings but she should think what is she should do for herself. Tim Burton made the Alice sequel as a story progression. There were also inconsistency between the animated flick and the Burton flick. The Caterpillar was already turned to a butterfly in the animated flick. In the sequel, he's the Caterpillar again named Absalom. Absalom projects an image here as a wise sage unlike the animated flick. Alice here was a woman ahead of her time. She is too modern for any girl living in a Victorian England society. She is what we might see as a feminist here. Crispin Glover has the same type of role as a henchman doing an evil deed for his superior like what he portrayed in Charlie's Angels as the Thin Man. In my book, Tim Burton did a great job with Alice and there's no other director who can do it better. If you disagree,then I must be going bonkers. "But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are."

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