When the first teaser trailer for the new Alice in Wonderland film - an extravagant 3-D update of the classic Lewis Carroll story by Tim Burton - debuted on the web it's fair to say hats were not so much raised as simply knocked slightly askew by unconvinced frowns. The presence of long-term Burton collaborators Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter (obviously) and Burton's fiancee Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen came as no surprise; No, the biggest worry was that in entering the 3-D realm the Edward Scissorhands director had overdosed on CGI and forgotten all about the story.
Thankfully the latest trailer reveals some more plot details and shows that there may be more depth to the film than the teaser suggested. Click here to watch it:
Here we get our first taste of Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter as he greets a miniature Alice (Aussie actress Mia Wasikowska, last seen opposite Daniel Craig in Defiance) who's back in Wonderland after spending so many years in the real world. She's now 19, jumping down a rabbit hole to dodge a marriage proposal from toothy fop Hamish Ascot. The Hatter explains that in her absence the Red Queen has taken over Wonderland but with a little help from Anne Hathaway's White Queen, legend has it Alice is the only person who can slay the guardian of the Red Queen's domain, the Jabberwock, voiced by Christopher Lee. Except Alice has no knowledge of this prophecy nor any memory of visiting Wonderland as a young girl.
Penned by screenwriter Linda Woolverton (The Lion King), the latest incarnation of Alice in Wonderland aims to breathe life into characters who have previously just been one dimensional (there have been 23 film and TV adaptations since 1903 - this will be the 24th). "Seeing other movie versions of it, I never felt an emotional connection to it," explains Burton. "It was always a girl wandering around from one crazy character to another." Woolverton's script is an amalgamation of the first novel Alice in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking Glass but the intention for the new film was to make Alice more of a female role model this time around. Producer Jennifer Todd describes the film as "somewhat about female empowerment as well as the typical struggle between good and evil". Alice garners a suit of armour along her journey so don't be surprised if Alice goes all Joan of Arc on the Red Queen's ass come the climax.
Alice in Wonderland is the first of two 3-D projects that Tim Burton has signed on to make under Disney yet he's already angered fellow filmmakers like James Cameron by shooting Alice in 2-D and converting it to 3-D in post production. "We didn't do it with a 3-D camera," Burton admits. "We did it where we got all our information from different cameras. We didn't really have five or six years to make it [and with] the techniques we were using it just gave us more freedom to get the depths and layers we wanted in the time we were dealing with." Whether this backwards approach will have a negative effect on the 3-D effects in the movie remains to be seen, though the new trailer does display some impressive visuals.
Meanwhile Burton has surrounded his teenage Alice with familiar Lewis Carroll characters who will be voiced by a host of great actors. Hence the Cheshire Cat bears the refined tones of Stephen Fry, Little Britain's Matt Lucas is both Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Michael Sheen is the White Rabbit who lures Alice down his hole at the start of the film while Alan Rickman is the infamous 'hookah-smoking Caterpillar' and Crispin Glover the thieving Knave of Hearts. Alice in Wonderland 3-D may not be as highly anticipated as, say, Avatar, Tron Legacy or Toy Story 3, but the combination of Burton's twisted sense of humour (The Red Queen: "I love a warm pig belly for my aching feet"), Lewis Carroll's timeless story and Everyone's Favourite Actor Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, we shouldn't discount it just yet.
Alice in Wonderland will be released in UK cinemas on March 5th, 2010 in Disney Digital 3-D, IMAX 3-D and on regular 2D screens nationwide.
Resources:
http://blastmagazine.com/the-magazine/entertainment/2009/07/tim-burton-talks-wonderland/
http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/12/02/james-cameron-criticizes-tim-burton-and-3d-dvd-releases/