Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: A Review

BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE

This is the Age of the Nostalgia Sequel, where we have to have a sequel on an old film from decades past. We had Twisters. We had Ghostbusters Frozen Empire. We had Mean Girls (though to be fair, that was the film version of the musical which was based on the film). That is not even going into prequels and remakes, such as The First Omen and The Crow. Now we have Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the sequel to a thirty-six-year-old film. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is probably not the worst film of 2024. It is probably not even the worst Nostalgia Sequel of 2024. It is, rather, a pointless waste of time, with so much going on that ultimately nothing happens. 

Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) is now the hostess of Ghost House, where she communicates with the dead. She is startled when she has visions of her old nemesis Betelgeuse flashing. These visions do not concern Lydia's producer/boyfriend Rory (Justin Theroux) a great deal. However, Lydia learns from her stepmother Delia (Catherine O'Hara) that Lydia's father Charles has died. Lydia, Delia and Rory now go to Charles' funeral and have to pick up Lydia's estranged daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) up at her prep school.

Astrid is still hostile to her mother ever since her father Richard disappeared in the Amazon. She is more appalled when Rory takes the opportunity to propose marriage to Lydia, insisting that it be at midnight on Halloween, a mere three days away. Astrid makes friends with local boy Jeremy (Arthur Conti), who is not what he appears to be in more ways than one.

Someone who is what he definitely appears to be is Beetlejuice himself (Michael Keaton), determined to get his slimy fingers on Lydia. He has his own issues with the sudden return of his ex-wife Delores (Monica Bellucci), out for revenge after he chopped up her body due to her trying to literally suck his soul when both were alive. She is wandering around the halls of the afterlife, as are Astrid and Jeremy. Will the dead Richard (Santiago Cabrera) be able to save his daughter? Will Delia find that those asps are not as safe as she thought? Will Beetlejuice get his mortal woman?

I have never been one who held Beetlejuice as this masterful film. It is a fine film, entertaining and quirky. However, I never joined the cult around it, or of any film made in my lifetime. With that being said, I am surprised over how Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is being made out to be some delightful romp and nice throwback to the beloved original. In reality, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a hollow, pointless film, with various plots wandering around in total confusion and conflict. 

In my plot recap, I did not mention Willem Dafoe as Wolf Jackson, a B-movie action star who is now a cop in the afterlife pursuing Delores. Why is that? Well, it is because for long stretches of a surprisingly short film, he is pretty much forgotten in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. I had actually forgotten that Delores was in the film at all as well. We learn about Delores' backstory through Beetlejuice himself in a faux-Italian film scene, which to be fair was not terrible.

I pause to note that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is only twelve minutes longer than Beetlejuice. Despite that, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice feels infinitely longer than the first one. I put it down to the fact that the sequel has so many characters that feel so unnecessary. I figured the Jeremy/Astrid subplot alone could have been enough for one movie. The Delores subplot alone could have been enough for one movie. The conflict between Lydia and Astrid alone could have been enough for one movie. Yes, you can combine one or two of those, but all of them do not mesh into a cohesive whole. 

The alleged twist with Jeremy is so obvious that I wrote in my notes "Jeremy--are parents dead? Him too?". I wonder if screenwriters Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (with a screen story by Gough and Millar along with Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter writer Seth Grahame-Smith) watched Toy Story 2 and/or Toy Story 3 before working on Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. When Betelgeuse's minions escape into the real world (another subplot that I do not think was resolved), I got flashbacks to the original Jumanji. 

As a side note, when we get to the second wedding attempt from Betelgeuse to Lydia, I wondered what exactly happened to the influencers invited to the wedding ceremony. I won't bother wondering why the wedding had to take place at midnight on Halloween or why Father Damien (Burn Gorman) would agree to any of this. I also won't bother wondering why MacArthur Park, of all the songs in the world, is the one used for a variation of the Day-O (Banana Boat Song) scene in Beetlejuice. I like to think that "Father Damien" is a nod to The Omen, but honestly, I think that is giving Beetlejuice Beetlejuice far too much credit.

I was genuinely surprised that the various subplots were resolved shockingly quickly. The Jeremy subplot was solved so fast that perhaps the film should have ended there. The Delores subplot was equally resolved so quickly that it all seemed pretty pointless to be there at all. The absence of the Maitlands from Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was shockingly lazy. "We found a loophole" that let them move on, Lydia says. What was that loophole? How did it come about? Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was not going to tell us. It only had to give us some reason, no matter how vague, to explain away that they were not there. It was pretty much insulting, and I do not know why Beetlejuice fans just went along with it. 

I could not shake the idea that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice could have gone in so many different ways, explored so many different routes, but opted instead to go everywhere and nowhere. 

I do not think that there was much in performances. I might exempt Catherine O'Hara, who did her best to be that wacky artiste not totally aware of things. Michael Keaton too did well as Betelgeuse, even having a bit of a romp when discussing his life with Delores. I did, however, wonder if Winona Ryder was genuinely shocked to be in the film, for there was this look of desperation to her performance. Justin Theroux knew the character was dumb and played it that way. Willem Dafoe was just happy to be working, and I don't think cared if he was necessary. 

Perhaps some begrudging credit should be thrown at director Tim Burton for going out of his way to not include the disgraced Jeffery Jones in the film. Yes, his character died, but we got a Claymation reenactment of his final moments and then his dismembered corpse popping in and out sans reason. Ortega played the part of the insufferable Astrid correctly, so there's that. Conti, to his credit, at least left open the idea that Jeremy might be a lot of things. Is he a ghost himself? Is he a living person who, like Lydia, can speak to ghosts and might be unaware that he can speak to them or that his parents might be dead? Is he a ghost that is unaware that he is dead? 

Again, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice could have gone so many different ways. Why it opted to go the way it went is to me, a sign that it did not care.  

The one part that I thought was clever was the Soul Train section. I will leave it to readers to decide if having soul music playing while black people dance and a vaguely Don Cornelius conductor lead the actual Soul Train to either Heaven or Hell is a stereotype. However, at least that seemed to be a clever bit.

Apart from that, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is just there. What it is, what it wants, I can't guess at. Yes, at least it is way better than Argylle.

Seriously, of all the songs in the world, MacArthur Park? 

DECISION: D-

Dumbo (2019): A Review

DUMBO

The Walt Disney Company is diving into its 'vault' to remake its catalog in a naked cash-grab that might be embarrassing if not for the fondness many hold for their films. So far, we've seen remakes of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty via Maleficent and The Jungle Book. Now we have Dumbo, with live-action remakes of Aladdin and The Little Mermaid waiting in the wings.

I enjoyed the Cinderella and Jungle Book remakes. I liked Maleficent well-enough. Dumbo is another creature altogether, a strange adaptation where I am almost willing to praise it if only for the fact that director Tim Burton essentially took Disney's money and used it to bash the very company counting on him to give it more money.

In 1919, World War I veteran and former horse-riding master Holt Farrier (Colin Farrell) has finally returned to the Medici Brothers Circus and his children Milly (Nico Parker) and Joe (Finley Hobbins). Holt finds that he is now a widower and the children find he lost his arm. While Mancini Brothers owner/ringmaster Max (Danny DeVito) is fond of Holt, he cannot find a place for a one-armed former trick-horse rider in his circus. He does squeeze him in taking care of the elephants, especially one about to give birth. A baby elephant, Max figures, will attract patrons to his struggling circus.

Unfortunately, the new elephant, Jumbo Jr., is born with freakishly long ears. Max is appalled, Holt attempts to be kind, and the children discover thanks to Milly's more scientific mind that Jumbo Jr., now nicknamed 'Dumbo', can fly if he snorts a feather through his truck. Separated from his mother after she rampages to protect her child, Dumbo (and Holt) is put into the clown act where Dumbo takes to flight.

News spreads quickly, catching the attention of theme park impresario V.A. Vandervere (Michael Keaton). Vandervere talks Mancini into bringing his troupe to his Coney Island theme park, Dreamland by making Mancini a partner and promising jobs for everyone. Dumbo is quickly corralled into being the star attraction, only now he must join Colette (Eva Green), a trapeze artist/Vandervere's mistress. Their debut is a disaster when Dumbo realizes his mother is in another part of Dreamland. Vandervere breaks all his promises and plans to kill Dumbo's mother, but the troupe with Colette's help engineer a plan to save Dumbo and his mother and bring down Vandervere.

The revamped Mancini Brothers Circus now is animal-free, Holt and Colette are now firmly involved and Dumbo & Mother are in the Asian jungle, free from all humans.

One might imagine that despite the somewhat cutesy reputation Dumbo has that a remake would be right up Burton's street. It is centered around circus folk and has a protagonist with a unique feature not only an Edward Scissorhands or Ed Wood. What Dumbo lacks however, is a reason for being. It is surprising that the main character is essentially superfluous to the film. Dumbo himself is pretty much irrelevant to Dumbo. You could have had any other eccentric character take his place and the film would have been the same.

It might even have been better.

Dumbo looks sad most of the time, but apart from a feather fetish he does not have much to him that makes one care all that much about him. I think this is because Ehren Kruger's screenplay is more interested in our human characters and their morose lives to give our pachyderm much thought. When Dumbo takes flight for the first time for example, it should be his personal triumph against all those who mocked him and mistreated him. Instead, you feel pretty much nothing.

Even worse, what should be the conclusion for Dumbo ends up being just the end of the second act, and this is where Dumbo goes off the rails. Dumbo is openly subversive, if that makes any sense. Burton and Kruger openly ridicule the Walt Disney Company, and I cannot believe that the high-ups would be so dense as to miss how the film insults them. Dumbo's position is in how Dreamland (read Disneyland/Walt Disney World) is essentially the antagonist. Dreamland is pretty much mocking the theme resort: my mother commented while watching that Dreamland was really EPCOT, down to a 'Wonders of Science' Pavilion. Vandervere, this impresario who tells Max that it's more economical to bring the audiences to the show rather than vice-versa, is as close to a bashing of Walt Disney as I've seen in a long time.

I figure it delighted Burton and Kruger that they got a chance to trash the very company that financed the film, but it's as overt as I have seen. They even managed to throw in a good 'animals should not be entertaining humans and should live only in nature' message for good measure.

There is also something wildly wrong with the performances. Parker seems to be doing her best Wednesday Addams impersonation, making Milly less the bright scientifically-minded girl and more a creepy, almost ghoulish monotone-speaking figure. I was waiting for her to call her brother 'Pugsly'. Farrell goes all-in on some Texan-Oklahoman accent that he mostly hangs on to, but he too appears monotone, though to be fair he didn't have much to work with. Green seems to be keeping up with him in looking almost bored throughout Dumbo.

It seems that Dumbo has two types of performances. There's the Parker/Farrell/Green performances: somewhat bored and emotionalless. Then there's the Hobbins/DeVito/Keaton performances: wildly over-the-top with the latter having some oddball accent that gives Farrell and Green a good run for the money as to who could sound the silliest.

There are shout-outs to the original, particularly the songs. Max likes to hum and sing snippets of Casey Junior, one of the circus folk sings part of Baby Mine and Pink Elephants on Parade (or at least elements of it) can be heard when Dumbo's Dreamland opening show begins via a lavish bubble making number. Granted, When I See An Elephant Fly could never be performed now given how the original veered towards blackface, but even that gets a nod. However, the songs, like the main character, seem almost an afterthought, included almost because they are contractually obligated to be there.

Dumbo is not a nostalgia trip for those who remember the animated original (the lack of Timothy Mouse was especially disappointing to me). It is grossly unfair to compare the original and remake, though for me the sweetness and positive message the original Dumbo had is lost here. Instead, we get a critique of glitzy theme parks and using animals in circuses and worse, a film that has no real reason for being. I found sadly that in the end this Dumbo is as unnecessary as the main character was to the film itself.

DECISION: D-

Batman Returns: A Review

BATMAN RETURNS

Welcome to Rick's Texan Reviews Annual Christmas Special.  Every Christmas Day I review a Christmas-related film.  This year, I decided to take the opportunity of working through my Batman Retrospective and my annual Christmas film by reviewing Batman Returns.  It has a Christmas setting, which is good enough for me to make it this year's Christmas film. 

Therefore, Batman Returns is our Christmas Film for 2016. 

It is no surprise that after the financial and critical success of Batman there would lead to a sequel.  Batman was a tremendous success, down to winning an Oscar for the Art Direction (though its failure to receive Cinematography, Make-Up or Original Score nomination is puzzling).  Perhaps the thought was, 'if one villain was good, then two is better'.  Batman Returns has the Dark Knight facing off against two of the most famous of the Rogue's Row of the mythos: The Penguin and Catwoman.

It is Christmas season in Gotham City, but the sins of its past and present are going to visit our fair city.  From the past comes a strange being, long rumored to live in the sewers.  The Penguin-Man is said to lurk there, and we find that the rumors are true.  The Penguin (Danny DeVito), is a short, fat man with a beak-like nose and disfigured hands which look like flippers.  Penguin comes out thanks to an encounter with villainous tycoon Max Shreck (Christopher Walken).  A 'carnival of crime' so to speak has attacked the Gotham City Tree-Lighting ceremony, and while Batman (Michael Keaton) was able to stop it, Shreck in the chaos was taken by Penguin.

They strike a nefarious deal: Shreck will help integrate Penguin into society and help locate his parents in exchange for Penguin's silence on Shreck's evil plans (including the death of Shreck's former business partner...whose hand Penguin finds in his sewers). 

One scheme Penguin isn't aware of involves Shreck's meek secretary, Selina Kyle (Michelle Pfeiffer). She discovers Shreck's plan to manipulate his hoped-for power plant which he plans to use to take power out rather than in.  To stop this nobody, Shreck has no problem pushing Selina out a window to fall to her death.  However, she manages to survive, revived when a group of cats begins gnawing at her.  In her newly-empowered body, she has a total breakdown from her old meek self and fashions herself a new identity: Catwoman.

Penguin discovers his true identity (Oswald Cobblepot) and yearns for respectability, which he should be entitled to as a scion of one of Gotham's wealthy families.  Shreck wants Bruce Wayne's help with his power plant, but Wayne thinks it is a front.  Shreck is also astonished to find Selina, very much alive and kicking in more ways than one.  Wayne, for his part, finds Selina sexually intriguing, but she's non-committal.

Now Shreck devises a new scheme: join forces with Penguin to have our fowl-feathered friend become Mayor and split the city among them.  Penguin agrees, and then has a caller: Catwoman.  She finds that Batman will be a difficulty for both of them and suggests they join forces to defeat him by framing him for crimes. 

The plan is set in motion: frame Batman for the killing of the Ice Princess (a model that lights the Christmas Tree).  Catwoman thought they were going to use the Ice Princess for bait, not flat-out kill her, but Penguin won't be denied.  Penguin's overtures are rebuffed by Catwoman, who struggles with her attraction to Batman, and Penguin tries to kill her.  He forgot: a cat has nine lives.

Things come to a head when Penguin takes over the Batmobile, using it to try and create chaos while Batman cannot at first control it.  He does regain control, and even manages to record Penguin's anti-Gotham City comments, which he eagerly plays when Pengy has a press conference.

Enraged, Penguin abandons his efforts at respectability (and Shreck abandons him).  Penguin's first monstrous plan is to kill the first-born of Gotham's elite who are the Max-Querade Ball (Shreck's annual party).  As Selina and Bruce dance together at the ball, they realize who the other really is.  Before anything can be worked out, Penguin literally crashes the party and announces his King Herod-like plan. At first he plans to take Chip Shreck (Andrew Bryniarski), but is convinced to take Max instead.

Batman foils this scheme, and a more enraged Penguin opts for Plan B: unleash his army of penguins to launch rockets onto Gotham itself.  This too fails, and a final battle between Batman and Penguin takes place.  Catwoman, for her part, seeks revenge against Shreck, who genuinely is puzzled as to why Bruce Wayne is dressed like Batman.  "Because he IS Batman, you moron," the equally unmasked Kyle snaps.  A final battle between the three of them takes place now, with Selina disappearing and Shreck dead.

Wayne, still in mourning for his vixen, thinks he sees her, but perhaps it was not her.  In the end, as we see the Bat-Signal, and a feline figure watching it in the night.

Batman Forever is certainly darker than Batman and miles away from the camp fun of Batman 1966. You have very suggestive dialogue (when seeing Catwoman in his bed, Penguin says, "Just the pussy I've been looking for", which I hope went over kids' heads.  In terms of the violence we do get a bit more than a film with a strong following with kids.

We see Penguin bite someone's nose off, one of the Red Triangle Gang members set on fire (the fact that said criminal was dressed like Satan not helping matters), and two women falling to their deaths.

That being said, I didn't find it as violent as I was lead to believe.  The violence I found tolerable, not grotesque.  In truth, I think it's not as violent as some other films.  Then again, this is not a film I would recommend for younger children, no matter how much they may love Batman.  Some scenes might be too hard for them (even though no baby is actually drowned in Batman Returns, the suggestion might be already frightening enough to cause them a few sleepless nights).

In terms of performances there's good and bad.  The good is the villainous duo of DeVito and Pfeiffer as Penguin and Catwoman.  DeVito relishes the role of evil, monstrous Penguin.  He manages to sneak in some quips that are appropriate to the character (in using a spinning umbrella on Shreck, the evil billionaire sarcastically remarks, "Is that suppose to hypnotize me?", to which Penguin snaps, "No, just give you a terrible headache".

DeVito gets the fact that Penguin is evil but has a certain panache to his villainy, one that fits into this world of masked heroes and deranged super-villains.  When is supposed to be dramatic and play for our sympathy, however, I felt he was a bit too dramatic, as if overplaying things.  I think it might have been deliberate, but it still comes across as going a bit overboard.

The sensation of Batman Forever is Pfeiffer as Catwoman/Selina Kyle.  Unlike DeVito but like Keaton, she has to play two to three roles: the meek Selina, the more empowered yet conflicted Selina, and the powerful anti-hero Catwoman.  She makes that evolution more than believable, being wicked when needed, but also torn between taking revenge and following her more compassionate side.  She struggles in her attraction to Batman as Catwoman, and in her attraction to Bruce Wayne as Selina Kyle.

Christopher Walken was Christopher Walken, all curious cadences and solid acting.  His name was an obvious nod to Nosferatu actor Max Schreck (as a quick scene at the Masquerade Ball where we see a nod to the silent version of The Phantom of the Opera, not overt but not subtle either). He was openly sleazy and wicked, and unapologetically so.

In the bad, however, was Keaton.  He hardly was bad in the dual role of Bruce Wayne/Batman: I still think he is exceptionally strong as the torn hero.  However, he seemed a bit diminished whenever he had to share the screen with DeVito or Pfeiffer, as if he were slipping into supporting rather than lead character.  He was just there, almost because he had to be there.  He didn't do that much investigating, he didn't pursue them specifically unless drawn out by them, and he kind of was just there when he needed to be.  There was a shift in attention from Batman to the villains, and this is something that should be noted.

A lot of Batman Returns is deliberately grand, almost epic-attempting.  The various sweeping shots (even of model sets), the music of Danny Elfman, and the various shout-outs to other stories (Penguin's origin story taking a cue from the Moses story in The Book of Exodus, the attempted 'slaughter of the innocents' from the Gospel of Matthew).  It's as if Batman Returns wants to call attention to itself, to its various images, to be iconic when maybe pulling back a bit might have worked better for it.

There's certainly an epic feel to Batman Returns, but it's not an epic.  It is a good movie, enhanced by the great performances of Michelle Pfeiffer and Danny DeVito (in my view, no other actress playing Catwoman before or since has equaled her performance, and only Gotham's Robin Lord Taylor has topped DeVito, though they play different versions of Pengy).

Batman Returns is as good a sequel as the original Burton-Batman films were likely to get.  Not the greatest Batman film, or even the best Batman sequel.  However, it was well-acted, well-made, and well worth the time...which maybe can't be said for those that follow Batman Returns.

DECISION: B+

Next Batman Film: Batman Forever

2015 Christmas Film: A Madea Christmas
2014 Christmas Film: Prancer
2013 Christmas Film: A Christmas Carol (1951)
2012 Christmas Film: Arthur Christmas

Batman (1989): A Review (Review #855)

BATMAN

Batman came about at a most curious time.  If people thought of Batman at all, it was that of a campy television show, one that had made the Dark Knight into a figure of fun (the film version did not help dispel the idea that Batman was camp at best).  Also, comic book-based films had suffered a beating after the horrors of Superman III AND Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.  As such, Batman was already facing a tough fight.  Through in the casting of Michael Keaton, an actor best known for comedies like Mr. Mom and Beetlejuice, as the Dark Knight and many in the fanbase were prepared for a disaster.  And did I mention that the director of Batman was the same guy who made Beetlejuice?

However, Batman did what few thought possible: it created a brilliant adaptation that has stood the test of time, coupled with great performances and an iconic theme that I think is still held as THE Batman theme (even if most Batman fans have worshipped at the altar of newer adaptations).

There's a myth spreading about the criminals in Gotham City of a strange creature who targets wrongdoers, a large bat.  It doesn't take long to discover that there is such a creature, who when asked who he is, replies coldly, "I'm Batman".  Not believing or caring about the growing rumors is one Jack Napier, second-in-command to Gotham mobster Gus Grissom (Jack Palance).  Napier has been secretly involved with Grissom's mistress, Alicia (Jerri Hall), oddly the least dangerous and unhinged thing Napier is involved with.  Grissom sends Jack to eliminate evidence at a chemical factory, but Jack discovers that he's been set-up by Grissom to be killed by the corrupt police in his payroll.

Fortunately for him, Commissioner Gordon (Pat Hingle), the rare honest cop, shows up to insist Napier be caught alive.  Unfortunately for him, so does Batman.  Napier's efforts at escape fail, and he falls into a vat of acid.  Everyone believes Napier is dead, but he's got a few tricks up his sleeve.  The first one is his new name to go with the disfigured face.  You can call him, "Joker" (Jack Nicholson).

The only person who is convinced that there is a six-foot-bat harassing Gotham's criminals is Gotham Gazette reporter Alexander Knox (Robert Wuhl).  Into this comes photographer Vicki Vale (Kim Basinger), best known for her glamorous images but who has earned praise for covering a violent political revolution.  She too is convinced there's a story here, and teams up with Knox.

It isn't long before both encounter millionaire Bruce Wayne (Michael Keaton), and his loyal manservant, Alfred (Michael Gough).  Wayne takes an instant interest in Vale...as does Joker, who now has unleashed his merry madness upon Gotham. A war now begins between the two, with Vale caught in the middle.

The mad Joker terrorizes Gotham with his own brand of chemical warfare, which does not please the Mayor of Gotham or the new, honest District Attorney Harvey Dent (Billy Dee Williams).  The City is determined to have Gotham's Bicentennial, but ultimately give up for security reasons.

In sweeps Joker, who offers Gothamites a beautiful offer: he will throw a big party for Gotham, and throw out $20 million.  In exchange, he demands a duel with The Batman.

The war between Joker and Batman is intensified when Wayne discovers that Napier is responsible for the murder of Bruce's parents so long ago. 

At the Bicentennial Celebration, Joker taunts Batman, until Vale and Knox find that Joker is unleashing his Smylex poison gas and plans to kill everyone.  Batman sweeps in and is brought down by The Joker, who thinks he's killed his hated rival...and managed to capture the luscious Miss Vale to boot.  It's up to Gotham Cathedral for one last final confrontation between these two foes.

In the end, Batman is triumphant, and gives Gotham a gift should they need his help again: the Bat-Signal.

Batman has so much going for it, that with the passage of almost 30 (!) years, we forget just how good it is.   At the top of the list are the performances.

Keaton had a great deal to prove.  As stated, he was known primarily for comedy, so his casting was controversial to say the least.  However, Keaton did a fantastic job as both Bruce Wayne and Batman.  One of his best scenes was when he goes to Vale to admit his secret identity.  Keaton brings a mixture of lightness and hesitancy with some seriousness, bridging some if not humor at least levity from the somewhat oppressive nature of the Batman world.

His Batman is perfectly serious without being overwhelmingly dour.  His Bruce Wayne has a slight awkwardness that makes it plausible to imagine people haven't put two-and-two together.

Batman, however, has a total ace up its sleeve: Jack Nicholson as The Joker.  It is hard for Millennials and many people to imagine anyone other than Heath Ledger as the Clown Prince of Crime, but for most GenXers, it's Nicholson who defined this brilliantly bonkers master-criminal.  Nicholson makes the Joker into a believable character, one who is dangerous but also outlandish, in keeping with how the character was before he became, in my view, too psychotic and murderous. 

Nicholson reminds me of how another serious and brilliant actor (Gene Hackman) made his own comic book villain (Lex Luthor) into someone who was both humorous and dangerous.  Their enormous talent has something to do with it.  Nicholson, not to get sidetracked, latches on to the unhinged danger of Joker while bringing his demonic humor to life.

I think that this is because Burton made this version of Gotham City into one that works within its world.  It is outlandish but it works within the generally fantasy world of Batman.  In other words, the world of Batman appears real but not too real where we cannot note the comic book trappings.  It is oppressive without being depressing and devoid of any sense of hope.  There wasn't much humor if any really (though a few bits were allowed, such as Batman's complaint after rescuing Vale that despite her claim, "You weigh more than 108"), but it wasn't overly dark and gloomy.

As a side note, at first I thought the 'death by beauty products' was silly, but having re-seen Batman, it does keep to how demented and outrageous the Joker was.

I can't fault Basinger for being a bit of a damsel-in-distress, and she was at times a bit blank.  Still, she did a respectable job.  Won't go after Wuhl either, but part of me thinks he could have been dropped and let Vale take a more commanding role.

Now, while many Batman fans objected to having Napier be the Wayne's killers, I don't think it's a dealbreaker.  I'd rather object to the sometimes silly moments (such as how dumb/egocentric Joker must be to believe Vale would so quickly find him desirable).  That bit would bother me only in that it is hard to believe a.) Wayne would not realize Jack was his parent's killer when first seeing him, and b.) no one in Gotham would know the Wayne Family tragedy.

Part of me also thinks Batman expect you to know a lot of the mythos already (the opening is a nod to Batman's origin story, so whether they were teasing us or not we cannot say).

Still, so much of the film works that what flaws it has pretty much can be ignored or forgiven.  Throw in Danny Elfman's iconic Batman theme and you have one of the best comic book-based films around.

Great performances, a plausible world, and Elfman's score combine to make Batman a standard to judge other comic book adaptations.  Dark without being overwhelming gloomy, Batman revived the comic book genre...a genre where we'd see the Batman franchise itself fall and rise.

That, however, is in the future. 

DECISION: A-

Next Batman Film: Batman Returns

Dark Shadows (2012): A Review (Review #488)

DARK SHADOWS

Shadows Be Gone...

Well, it shouldn't surprise anyone that I never saw Dark Shadows, the 1960-70s Gothic soap opera populated by vampires, witches, and other supernatural beings.  Among other reasons I missed this show: I would have to have been around when the show first aired, I would have preferred Count Von Count over Barnabas Collins, and I doubt in my formative years my parents would have thought Dark Shadows would be appropriate fare.  My time would be better spent watching children's programs like Hunter, Knight Rider, The A-Team, Airwolfe, Street Hawk, and The Equalizer.  Be that as it may, I have enough knowledge of Dark Shadows to go into the film adaptation of the television series without being completely lost.  I say 'completely' because judging from the film version, I now don't know if the television Dark Shadows was meant to be stupid or just ended up that way. Dark Shadows, the film, never decided whether it was an homage, a spoof, or a faithful recreation of the series.  Whatever it was intended, Dark Shadows ends up being a mess.

We start in 1760, when the Collins family emigrates from Liverpool to Maine.  There, Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp) has fallen in love with Josette DuPres (Bella Heathcoate).  However, maidservant Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green) has either fallen in love with Barnabas or had an affair with him (I wasn't sure which) but in any case he would not he loved her.  Angie, being a witch, puts a curse on the Collins family, leading to a hypnotized Josette throwing herself off a cliff and Barnabas not only being turned into a vampire but buried semi-alive.

We now go 1972.  Using the alias Victoria Winters (Heathcoate again) becomes the new Collins family governess to David (Gully McGrath), who claims to talk to his dead mother.  No one in the family believes him: not David's father Roger (Jonny Lee Miller), not his aunt and Collins Family Matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer), not Elizabeth's daughter Carolyn (Chloe Grace Moretz), or even the family psychiatrist Dr. Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter), who has taken permanent residence and is a lush.  Soon, however, things take a turn, as Barnabas' coffin is unearthed and he kills the work-crew unfortunate enough to have found him.

Barnabas goes to the family estate, hypnotizes the groundskeeper, Willie Loomis (Jackie Earle Haley...how I fight to refer to him as Groundskeeper Willie), and with only Elizabeth knowing the truth, joins the Collinses as Barnabas Collins III, distant British relation.  He now sets about to restore the family fishing fortune, brought nearly to ruin by...Angelique, who still lives and has a monopoly over the fishing industry in Collinsport. 

That's pretty much it in the story department. 

Barnabas has difficulty understanding the mod world of the 1970s, is enchanted with Victoria (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Josette), takes turns fighting and screwing Angie Baby (given it's the 70s, I can be forgiven a little Helen Reddy reference), continues to be puzzled by such things as lava lamps and Alice Cooper (who has an appearance playing himself), and ends in a climatic battle where basically most of the Collins household save Roger and Dr. Hoffman fight THE WITCH! THE WITCH!

As I kept watching Dark Shadows, I didn't think it was horrendous.  I thought it could never agree on what the story actually would be, let alone on whether Tim Burton and screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith had ever come to a conclusion as to what tone Dark Shadows would take.  Grahame-Smith has gained fame for his mash-ups of horror and literature/history with such work as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (pretty self-explanatory) and his adaptation of his own Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.  I confess to having enjoyed AL:VH as good, mindless fun, which puts me in the minority of film reviewers.  Say what you will about AL:VH, at least it kept a consistent tone (serious despite its oddball nature). 

Dark Shadows, on the other hand. never decided what it wanted to be.  Sometimes it wanted to be comic (every time Barnabas, despite living in the 1970s for some time, never got the hang of what a 'television' was or who The Carpenters were or that Alice Cooper is really a man).  Sometimes it wanted to be a horror film (every time Barnabas, ever most reluctantly, slaughtered people).  Sometimes it wanted to be camp (every time Barnabas and Angie Baby got together). 

What Dark Shadows never was, was actually good.  The biggest problem with Dark Shadows is with what is suppose to be the chief draw: Johnny Depp himself.  I can't say that Depp gave a bad performance; he gave the performance that was asked of him: the eternally stiff gentleman (no pun intended).  It's in the fact that Depp kept that one tone throughout Dark Shadows that is the problem.

In the beginning, Barnabas' confusion over the advances in the two centuries might be amusing.  However, by the end of the film, it makes him look like a blithering idiot.  Here he is, fighting to the death this witch, and he's STILL this stiff, formal gentleman.  One would have imagined that Depp, Burton, or Grahame-Smith would have allowed Barnabas to have grown in some way, taken note of the serious danger his family was under, but no--that would spoil the 'fun' of seeing this proper sixteenth century man still not get what's going on.

Take for example this idea that women find Barnabas irresistible.  He reacts to women performing sex acts on him puzzling, as if he'd never had sex before.  You really can't have it both ways: you can't make Barnabas some sort of sex object and make him completely unaware of the pleasures of the flesh at the same time.

It isn't as if Dark Shadows didn't give hints or make some efforts to make Barnabas a more rounded individual.  A subplot about him being a father-figure of sorts to David is hinted at, but we never get a follow through.  Again, the screenplay keeps giving suggestions of where the story will go but keeps getting lost along the way.   Victoria's story is basically forgotten (as is her character) to where one wonders WHY the 'modern' section of Dark Shadows starts with her.  Miller's character of Roger was not even necessary to the story: the choice Barnabas gives him (either be a good father or I'll pay you off and never see your son again) is both expected and really boring...as well as showing how irrelevant Roger was to the story to where you wonder why he was there to begin with. 

Then you get elements in Dark Shadows that just come out of nowhere.  Since WHEN was Carolyn a werewolf?  This either comes out of nowhere or I just fell asleep during the film and I just didn't see it.  It is lazy writing to have this twist without giving the audience any clue that it would happen.

Moreover, whenever the film tries to go for full-on comedy it just falls so painfully flat.  At a climatic moment in Dark Shadows, Barnabas is literally on fire, yet he doesn't appear to notice.  While the moment apparently is played for laughs, Danny Elfman's music makes it sound as if it were a dramatic moment.  It just never makes any sense.

What sealed the deal for me of Dark Shadows being a hideous misfire is when Angie Baby literally vomits AT Barnabas as a form of attack.  He dodges the first launch and even says, "Missed me", before you know what will happen next.  It's an ugly moment in more ways than one.

Dark Shadows is simply a lost opportunity.  It could have been a clever homage to this cult series.  It could have been a comic riff on the bizarre storylines the series was known for.  Instead, it was all over the place, throwing in elements left and right that never added anything to whatever story it was trying to tell or wanting to tell or thinking it was telling.

Dark Shadows is ultimately neither homage nor spoof of the series.  It ends up being a basterdization of it, almost as if the people behind the movie really wanted to destroy its reputation rather than celebrate it.  It's more mocking than anything else, and these Shadows deserve more respect than its 'fans' gave it.        

DECISION: F

Planet of the Apes (2001): A Review (Review #247)

PLANET OF THE APES (2001)


The Planet of the Apes Retrospective

Stop This Planet of the Apes I Want to Get Off!...

I remember going to see the remake of Planet of the Apes.  The theater was sold-out.  It was going to be a BIG movie.  The audience was excited to see this BIG movie (and I suspect to most of the audience, an original film).  Before the movie began, I saw two guys actually get into a fist-fight over seats.  Both argued that they had arrived at what I figure is prime seating (middle of the midsection of the theater), with their girlfriends "saving" their seats.  Neither would budge, so they settled it by throwing a few punches at each other.  The rest of the audience was stunned by this reaction, and both groups were ushered out of the theater.  

I tell this story not just because this was the first (and so far, last) time I've ever witnessed such a sorry spectacle, but because the fist-fight was more interesting and entertaining that Planet of the Apes, one of biggest disasters of 2001.

Captain Leo Davidson (Mark Wahlberg) is an astronaut deep in space.  On his ship, he is training a chimp, Pericles, to fly a pod so that the chimp can fly into a space storm rather than send a human (much to Leo's displeasure).  Pericles does so, and gets drawn into the storm.  Leo gets into a pod himself, to as he put it, "goin' to get my chimp".  Into this storm Leo flies, while the crew of the space station watch in horror as they start losing power and receiving a strange Mayday call but not from Leo.

Leo flies through the storm and straight onto a mysterious planet that vaguely resembles Dagobah from The Empire Strikes Back.  He's not there five minutes when he finds himself being chased along with a group of cavemen-looking humans.  Leo quickly finds he's being chased by apes, led by the ruthless General Thade (Tim Roth) and his right-hand gorilla, Attar (Michael Clark Duncan).  Leo, along with a family comprising a man (Kris Kristofferson), a beautiful woman (Estella Warren), a young man (Luke Eberl), and an adorable little girl, are all captured and taken to the Ape City.

There, Leo finds a world filled with more apes, and the human trader Limbo (Paul Giamatti), an orangutan, starts branding and selling the new captures.  One chimp, Ari (Helena Bonham Carter), a human rights activist (?) gets in his way and buys Leo and the woman.  She is the daughter of Senator Sander (David Warner), whom Thade covets.  Leo, with the help of the woman and another human slave (Erick Avari), escape with the help of Ari and her friend Krull (seriously...Krull?) (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa). 

Thade and Attar begin a pursuit of this human, and Leo and his entourage (pun intended) head for the sacred but forbidden city of Calima where Leo's instruments tell him his friends are at.  With him are the other slave, another slave (Evan Dexter Parke), the woman, the boy, Ari, Krull (!), and Limbo (taken against his will).  In Calima Leo makes a shocking discovery: Calima (which he discovers stands for CAution LIve aniMAls) the remains of his crashed space station.  It appears that while looking for him the Oberon itself crashed on this uninhabited planet, and the apes are the descendants of the monkeys they had brought with him. 

After getting over the shock, Leo reluctantly takes on the mantle of leader of the humans, who have flocked to Calima to see the human who defies the apes.  After the final battle (which is stopped by would you believe, Pericles?) apes and humans will try to live together in peace.  However, Leo wishes to go back to his home, so he boards Pericles' pod and flies off.  He gets back to a planet that looks like Earth, only to find one the dumbest and most illogical endings in film history.

Planet of the Apes is such a fiasco, such a misfire, that it boggles the mind that the director is Tim Burton and that it took three people to write this nonsense (William Broyles, Jr., Laurence Konnar, and Mark Rosenthal).  Both the direction and the screenplay make Planet of the Apes such a mess that one can either watch in stunned disbelief, in irritation, or in sheer laughter that so much time and effort was spent on trying to make a bad film even worse.

I think that the chief problem for Planet of the Apes (and that is saying much) is that it couldn't decide whether it was allegory or action.  You could have a movie where having humans as slaves, where apes question whether humans have souls, serves as commentary about how humans see each other.  You could have a movie where a battle between humans and apes for control of the planet (a Battle for Planet of the Apes, perhaps) be filled with great battle scenes.  What you can't have is one where you try for one, then drop it without reason.

The human factor actually is what makes Planet of the Apes more muddled.  On this unnamed planet, humans are able to speak just as well as apes.  Furthermore, the apes are fully aware that humans are able to speak just as well as they can.  Therefore, you can't logically have humans be animals because animals can't speak.  However, you have ape children demanding human children as pets.  As a result, you have a wild inconsistency in how humans are to be seen: are they animals or merely victims of ape bigotry?  You cannot have it both ways, but the film is trying to.

By focusing so much attention on 'action', we get no chance for character development.  Right after Leo crashes onto this planet we see this is a planet of apes, so there is no suspense about how talking humans (emphasis mine) got to be dominated by talking apes.  We jump from one action scene to another without any time to stop to know the characters man or beast. 

I digress to point out that Planet of the Apes also made a disastrous decision to have the dominant society "ape" present-day society.  Maybe Burton and the writers thought they were being clever, but they only ended up making the film unintentionally funny.  Seeing ape children play basketball isn't clever (but it did make one wonder how the apes found time to play games or where the simian version of Dr. Naismith emerged from).   There were also moment in Planet of the Apes that were downright painful, almost creepy, in the film's efforts to mirror our times.  When the humans were making their escape, we are treated to a scene of an old orangutan being entertained by his much-younger wife.  Not only was it an ugly scene to behold, but it did make it look like something out of Howard the Duck to where all the scenes of apes doing 'human' things passed into parody. 

Perhaps you may have noticed in my review that I gave names to only the apes and Wahlberg's character.  Now, all the human characters have names, but why bother giving them when I don't think they were used by anyone?  We never got to know any of them as individuals, what they desired or what they thought.  Take Kristofferson's character.  He shows up when the apes are chasing the humans, he is separated from his daughters, rescued, and then killed by Thade as the humans make their escape.  We never got to know him, we never got to sympathize with him, we never knew anything about him--and by killing him off so quickly, we never would.

Same goes for the "house human" (the slave in Ari's home who runs away with them: and I should add I feel uncomfortable with the phrase 'house human' given the connotation to the phrase 'house negro' and am puzzled as to how the three screenwriters would think it was a wise decision to use that phrase).  He appeared to be totally fearful of his ape masters, so why did he all of a sudden decide to run away with this group?  Even worse, he really had nothing to do: he wasn't rallying other humans to Leo's cause, he wasn't thinking about going back to the security of slavery, he was just...there.

This idea that the characters are just there, with really nothing to do, is reflected in all the performances.  As impossible as it may sound, I have discovered through Planet of the Apes that it is possible to wildly overact while in complete ape make-up.  Both Roth and Giamatti were so over-the-top in the film one wonders if they had any direction at all.  Roth's character was a disaster: always raging but never providing a reason as to why he had this utter hatred for humans.  Even when he was attempting to 'romance' Ari, it was with such anger it looked like he didn't want to be there.  Giamatti's orangutan was I figure the comic relief, but nothing he said was either funny or clever, just annoying.  Having him ask the humans, "Can't we all just get along?" does not help.  It's neither witty or good, but cringe-inducing.

Let's move on to the star of Planet of the Apes.  For years people have been trying to convince me that Mark Wahlberg is some extraordinary actor, up there will Colin Farrell or James McAvoy, that he is this icon of cinema.  Here, there is no proof he can think, let alone act.  Throughout Planet of the Apes his facial expression doesn't change: he has this perpetually stunned look in every scene, and his delivery is either rushed or bored.  He is flat and uninteresting and uncharismatic and dull.  The entire motivation for Leo to fly out of the ship is to go after his monkey, but in their first scenes Wahlberg never shows that he even likes his monkey, let alone cares for it so much that he's willing to risk his life for him.  Planet of the Apes played to all the worst aspects of Wahlberg as a star (I can't say actor since he wasn't acting here): one expression and stilted line delivery.

In short Marky Mark, it's a bad sign when you are out-acted by a chimpanzee.

As much as is my policy to not compare remakes (or re-imaginings) to the original, Planet of the Apes is goading me to when you have characters say lines like "Take your stinkin' hands off my, you damn dirty human" (Attar, emphasis mine) or "Damn them (humans), damn them all to hell" (Charlton Heston in a cameo as Thade's father).

I digress to point out his appearance in Planet of the Apes brought to mind something Joan Crawford's daughter Christina said about her in the documentary Joan Crawford: The Ultimate Movie Star.  She said that she didn't know if Trog was Crawford's last film, but if it wasn't it should have been.  According to IMDB it wasn't Heston's last film, but it should have been: a lousy ending to a brilliant career.

For those who've never seen the original, the references won't make any sense.  For those who have, it just reminds us of a better film. 

Speaking of things that don't make any sense, let's get into the actual story.  Now, if we are to believe the story the humans on Planet X are the descendants of Leo's fellow crewmen.  This means that while they were stranded on this planet, there was a lot of mating going on.  We really don't know how much time separates the crashing of the Oberon and Leo's arrival, but it does make one wonder how the first being to leave (Pericles) is the last to arrive (and arrive, I might add, at the most opportune time).  This is the scenario we're presented: according to the video archives the planet was uninhabited, so therefore the apes are Pericles' fellow chimps (note: we only saw chimps on the Oberon, so unless the gorillas were off-screen we don't know how they got there) and they must have bred just like the crew of the Oberon bred with each other.

How the monkeys got to where they could overpower the humans we know not either because as idiotic as it may sound, this point of logic is irrelevant to Planet of the Apes.  How it became a Planet of the Apes is not important to Planet of the Apes.  Ponder that for a moment. 

Now, let me move on to the ending of Planet of the Apes.  It was a mess, a disaster, a fiasco, and one of the most illogical and idiotic conclusion of all time.  Those who've never seen the original would not know that it had one of the greatest twist endings in film history, and moreover, one that was logical (making it even more horrifying and shocking).  My thinking is that Burton, Wahlberg, and Company decided they were going to try to top the original ending (and maybe leave the door open for a sequel).  However: THE. ENDING. MAKES. NO. SENSE.  Not only is it stupid, but it is a shameless cheat.  I normally avoid spoilers or give warnings, but in this case, I'll make an exception. 

The ending is this: Leo leaves a peaceful Planet of the Apes, crashes onto a planet that looks like Earth (complete with North and South America), and crashes at what appears to be the Lincoln Memorial.  When he walks up to the monument, Wahlberg (with his typically stunned look on his face) looks upon Lincoln to see...General Thade.  In short, he Escaped from Planet of the Apes only to crash onto ANOTHER Planet of the Apes!

Just as I remember the fist-fight pre-Planet of the Apes, I vividly recall the reaction to the conclusion in the theater.  Never before had I heard an audience react with just anger, such fury, yelling all sorts of things at the screen.  Among the kinder things I heard was "COME ON!"  "BOO!"  "YOU'RE KIDDING!"  The entire audience was in an uproar over this.  It WAS a cheat, it WAS a clumsy and shameless effort to get a sequel in, and IT. JUST. DIDN'T. MAKE. ANY. SENSE.  What part of that did intelligent people (and Marky Mark) not understand?

I had never seen or heard an audience so infuriated by anything on the screen.  My experience had/has been that audiences today let whatever is on the screen wash over them.  Audiences have become extremely passive to what they wash, but this, THIS, was just one step too far for them.  Even if the movie had been good (and it wasn't) having such a ridiculous ending that made no sense would have killed it.  The fact that this nonsensical ending (a bungled effort to make it more shocking) was the coda to a poor movie only made things worse.

When I left the theater, I heard the reaction of the audience.  It was one of anger and frustration.  The feeling was one of getting ripped off, of being sold a good action/adventure and getting a hopeless jumble where nothing made sense (even it the world it occupied) and where everything (save Rick Baker's brilliant make-up work) was just awful: acting, story, directing, even the sets (I kept wondering why the first two thirds of the film took place within this dark jungle while the third took place in a desert, the transition from near-dark and damp to light was a bit too much to take).

To the credit of audiences everywhere, Planet of the Apes, while financially successful (no doubt thanks to massive publicity building it as an 'event' film) was immediately rejected by the public.  Any hopes for a sequel died the moment Marky Mark looked upon the "new Lincoln".  In a moment of rare clarity in Hollywood, the producers and studios decided that, even though it made a lot of money, they weren't going to try to make a sequel.  It would have been interesting though, to see if they could truly make a film that was beneath even this Planet of the Apes. 

DECISION: F

2001 vs. 1968 Planet of the Apes: A Comparison

Next Planet of the Apes Film: Rise of Planet of the Apes

Alice in Wonderland (2010): A Review (Review #212)

ALICE IN WONDERLAND (2010)

A Carroll Out Of Tune...

You can't really call Tim Burton's film Alice in Wonderland for many reasons.  One: it's not strictly speaking an adaptation of the Lewis Carroll books Alice's Adventures in Wonderland or Through The Looking Glass.  Two: as many of the characters tell Alice, she really isn't in a place called Wonderland but actually called Underland.  

The film is therefore erroneously named.  It also is more a facsimile of the books, a remarkably joyless affair that has only name recognition going for it. 

Alice (my not-so-secret love Mia Wasikowska) is now 19, and facing a most unhappy prospect of a proposal by the tweedy Lord Hamish Ascot (Tim Piggot-Smith).  She does not want to marry him, but alas, this may be the only way to restore her family's fortunes.  Instead, she leaves Hamish and everyone else watching them at her surprise engagement party to go chasing rabbits.  Once again, she tumbles down a hole and finds herself in a world vaguely familiar but she stubbornly insists is all a dream.  Here, Alice eventually finds the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) still in the middle of his tea party, but the world Alice enters is not a happy world.  

The Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) has usurped the throne thanks to the help of the Jabberwocky and pushed out her sister the White Queen (Anne Hathaway).  The White Queen is looking for a champion to fight the Jabberwocky, and Alice, according to the scroll called the Oraculum (I figure because it's an oracle of things past, present, and future) states Alice and only Alice can kill this beast. 

Alice, of course, doesn't want to kill the Jabberwocky or anything really.  She does feel an obligation to rescue the Mad Hatter, trapped in the Red Queen's castle.  She does so, aided by the hunt dog Bayard (voice of Timothy Spall), the Dormouse (v.o. Barbara Windsor), and even the mischievous Cheshire Cat (v.o. Stephen Fry).  Once rescued (being sure to take the Vorpal Sword with her), they are ready to take on the reign of terror of the Red Queen and her champion.  Finally, she emerges back to her world and decides to do the most anti-Victorian thing and go into business, sailing to the East to swindle the Chinese, I mean, bring business to the Orient.

Amazingly, in spite of its one hour and forty-eight minute running time, Alice In Wonderland feels far longer and both rushed and boring all at once.  I put it to the fact that while screenwriter Linda Woolverton had a great source of material to work with, she and I figure Burton decided that the best thing to do was to take out all the wit, the joy, and the fun out of it and turn it into a cross between Return to Oz and The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc.  

The film is dark and dreary, and more blasphemous, there really is no story here.  Other than the fact that she yells a lot and has a big head, we don't see the Red Queen as a new Gaddaffi.  Other than her fluttering about we never see why the White Queen wishes to return to power.  Even more peculiar, the Mad Hatter is actually rather sane, his hair notwithstanding.  It takes a great deal of courage to take one of the Great Books of Literature (my English teacher always said the majority of quotations emerged from three sources: the Bible, Shakespeare, and Alice In Wonderland) and reduce it to a story of a somewhat stupid girl who has to lead some sort of revolution. 

I never trust a film that has a continous score, and longtime Burton collaborator Danny Elfman never lets up on his music.  There might have been a minute or perhaps two where there was actual silence, but to my mind I believe having perpetual music in a movie is a sign that the film needs something to keep people interested or at least not drifting off to sleep.  Granted, the sets and costumes are excellent in bringing us into this unreal (and allegedly named Underworld--side note: why change the name of the place, or better yet, why not call it Alice in Underworld) world, but besides that, what interest do we have in seeing Alice and her side defeat the Red Queen and her Knave (Cripin Glover) since we don't care about any of them.

As much as Wasikowska enchants me in her films (The Kids Are All Right, Jane Eyre), she has also not (Defiance) and here, she is in the latter.  Alice is so flat, having a blank expression through almost the whole film.  I put it on the fact that there is no story to hold our interest.

  

As stated earlier, Bonham Carter consists of yelling and Hathaway (who sadly given her makeup job looked 300 years old) was all fluttery.  Now, I'll say that they played their parts correctly, but they never had any actual character traits that made us either fear/hate one or rally/care about the other. 

Depp doesn't go wrong playing oddballs but I'll say it again: the Mad Hatter isn't mad as in crazy; maybe mad as in angry.  When he finally performs his Futterwacken (a dance of joy), it doesn't look funny or fun, just so at odds with the somber tone of Alice In Wonderland.

The voice work is on the whole good.  Alan Rickman was perfectly cast as the Caterpillar, and his grand tones, while easily recognizable, lent that air of haughtiness to the role.  Windor's Dormouse is odd only in that it brought back memories of Reepicheep from the Chronicles of Narnia films.  Whether it was a conscious decision to do so I don't know (I doubt it) but you can't have a mouse flinging a sword without us thinking about how similar they are.  To his credit, I did not recognize Michael Sheen as the White Rabbit, though Stephen Fry was more recognizable as the Cheshire Cat (side note: given Sheen's best-known performance is as Tony Blair, wouldn't it have been more accurate to have had him play the Cheshire Cat).

I will say that I did laugh when I heard the Cheshire Cat tell Alice that he never gets involved in politics.  If only that were true.  I bet a lot of the British-viewing public must have been rolling in the aisles or rolling their eyes.  Yet I digress.  

The story itself doesn't make much sense: if all know Alice will fulfill 'the prophesy', why is everyone so clueless about what she is doing there?  How is it that the Red Queen doesn't recognize Alice if she has seen her before in the past when she was there as a child, or even stop to think that this large creature who appears in her garden might be the mysterious Alice?

I cannot get over the fact that all that is good about the two books the film is based on was sucked dry to create something that did not have any energy, any joy, or any originality.  Alice In Wonderland is very busy but very empty, remarkably bland.  Even Johnny Depp suffers: his makeup makes him look like Elijah Wood of all people.  As long-time readers know how I feel about 3-D, I need not waste your time going over that once more. 

Alice In Wonderland the 2010 film bears little resemblance to Alice In Wonderland the book.  It was an interesting idea: to take a director known for his interest in the dark and quirky nature of life and adapt a work of joyful nonsense.  Somehow, they didn't mesh.  It's in the end odd that in Alice In Wonderland, there is no real sense of wonder, only boredom.

How Can You Tell The Difference?

DECISION: D-