What I Watched -- Alice in Wonderland

I'm on a kid/teen movie marathon, it would appear. And I have to say, I'm pretty sure this one falls into the teen category.

It's been a while since I read the book, saw the original movie, or even heard the fairy tale of Alice's adventures in Wonderland. Maybe my memory is off, but this movie is scarier and less-for-children than I remember any of those being. I suppose it's the Alice version of Harry Potter, which made The Wizard of Oz look like it was written for a three-year-old. To be sure, in the old version, the Red Queen still loves to shout "Off with his head!" just as she does here. But I don't remember Alice having to cross the Red Queen's moat by walking over the floating heads that had been so impulsively chopped. Was that in the book? The original movie?

In terms of visual excitement, this movie rocked my socks. Maybe it's just characteristic that the combo of Johnny Depp and director Tim Burton bring with them when they do kids (teen) movies; Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was the same way. The costumes and visual effects were great fun; it was a little bit like watching a carnival.

[As an aside: Depp and Burton have a substantial amount of overlapping filmography. Perhaps they admire the other's wild hairstyles.]

The cast is varied. There are superstars like Depp, crazy Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, and Anne Hathaway. There are people you'd know if you could remember who they played in other films: Mia Wasikowska (Jodi in The Kids Are All Right); Michael Sheen (David Frost in Frost/Nixon, Aro in the Twilight movies); Timothy Spall (Winston Churchill in The King's Speech, Wormtail/Peter Pettigrew in the Harry Potter movies); Martin Csokas (Celeborn in The Lord of the Rings). And there are relative unknowns, including a number of Brits who appear to have started their careers on the small screen: Crispin Glover (but what a great name!), Matt Lucas, Stephen Fry, and Barbara Windsor, to name a few.

Bottom line: most people can skip this movie and live a perfectly full and contented life. But if you're in the mood for something a bit off the wall, this just might suit you.