Why was Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland so disliked?

[TMC]

http://officialfan.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=offtopic&action=display&thread=468225

I don't think I've ever met anyone who liked it. No wait, that's not
right. I don't think I've ever met anyone who didn't hate it, and I
find that very weird. I mean, I can get not liking it, but I don't
understand why it's attracting such ire and why it made so many "worst
film of the year" lists.

Sure it took a lot of liberties from the books and didn't make much
sense but... so what? The story never made sense to begin with (after,
the point is to show how strange this world is), and it didn't really
have a cohesive structure so I think it should be pretty malleable,
and I found Burton's take on it decent.

I also really liked the visuals, it was really the kind of stuff I'd
expect to find in Wonderland, and it actually looked fairly different
from the usual Tim Burton fare, which is why I also don't get why so
many people who claim Burton keeps making the same movies disliked it.

Really the only problem I had with it was that I felt Alice could have
shown some emotions. I think she was supposed to be confused by her
surroundings but she looked more annoyed than anything. But for the
most part, I enjoyed this film a lot and I really don't see what's in
it that makes people hate it so much.

« Reply #2 Yesterday at 3:04pm »
It was an example of Burton's worst tendencies. The over use of his
typical actors, visual design that went from cool/interesting to
obnoxious, Depp being weird for the sake of weird and getting far too
much focus, etc

Thrown in a mess of a story that can't decide how much of it is a
tribute/sequel to the original, a dull protagonist who's dramatic
tension is strangled by the "fate/prophecy" trope, and a battle
sequence seemingly thrown in because they couldn't think of another
way of finishing the film and you have Alice in Wonderland.

The eye rolling dance by Depp's character kind of sums up the film
really; idiotic, unncessary, and presented as out there and weird when
its just plain tiresome.

And this is from someone who likes Burton, enjoyed Frankenweenie and
Sweeney Todd, and has stated that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
while forgettable, is not as bad as so many have said.

« Reply #3 Yesterday at 3:42pm »
^ What he said.

The damned Futterwacken, the completely out of nowhere main event push
of the Mad Hatter, the indecisive sequel/remake/tribute thing, also
not a fan of how it combined things from both Alice books, further
adding to the public confusion that there is even two Alice books to
begin with.

And the film does have the typical Burton look, the difference here is
he actually uses freaking color, so it stands apart from most of his
films.

« Reply #4 Yesterday at 3:53pm »
The only thing I didn't like about it was Johnny Depp. I don't have
anything against him, generally speaking, but I knew the Mad Hatter
was gonna be written as a bigger character to give him more screen
time and of course that's exactly what happened. I think it's kinda
stupid that he was cast as the Mad Hatter in the first place, it's
like they went "It's a Tim Burton movie and he wore a hat in the Willy
Wonka movie so obviously he has to play the Mad Hatter". Just dumb.

Crispin Glover was a nice surprise, however. The 3-D was totally
extraneous and added nothing to the experience, so paying extra for a
3-D ticket was pretty much a ripoff. I guess that's a fair bit of
criticism, but I had a decent time watching the movie.

« Reply #6 Yesterday at 4:20pm »
Didn't hate it, but can't say I liked it either. I really don't
understand why so many adaptations keep pushing the Mad Hatter as a
"good guy" when in the Disney version and original book version he was
kind of just an asshole.

I thought the Jabberwokky was done really well, and I really liked
Crispin Glover's role as the Jack of Hearts (or whatever) but really,
the movie was pretty forgettable.

Gotta throw in that I was disappointed with Alice not growing HUGE
too. (Meaning she never became the 50 foot version...just sort of an 8
foot girl). Bleh, I'm too much of a macrophile!

« Reply #7 Yesterday at 5:11pm »
My biggest issue was Alice being a terrible actress.

Also, Burton's usual desire to Carter Depp the entire thing.

« Reply #13 Yesterday at 6:44pm »
Turning something that was meant to be nonsense into forgettable
"hero's journey" dreck. No, "frabjous day" isn't some foretold date of
destiny, it's just a silly term of celebration. Burton just didn't get
the Alice stories, and he did absolutely nothing new with the tales
that merited the film being made.

[moviePig]

On Mar 18, 2:01 am, TMC <tmc1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> http://officialfan.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=offtopic&action=disp...

Though maybe neither widespread nor enduring, there was some
resentment at how a pasteboard wannabe (ALICE) bureaucratically
dislodged a technological avatar (AVATAR) from its celebrated record-
breaking Imax run. A distasteful omen, at least...

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