Yesterday, I went to see Alice and Wonderland.  Before going, I was told that the critics had declared it thoroughly and unforgivably Tim Burton with Johnny Depp given free-reign to be his bizarre self.  Well I loved it, even if I defy elite opinion.  Not only did it retain the brilliance of Lewis Carroll’s nonsensical style, while still allowing the viewer to grasp a basic understanding of the details of Wonderland, but it also infused fantastical dilemas of right and wrong, love and fear, and being practical while believing in the impossible.   The animation was brilliant.  The costumes in wonderland were humerously punk/fantasy, while the real world ones looked like Tim Burton’s animated world: pasty and gaunt.  the characters were apathetically larger than life- does that make sense?  I’ll try to explain.  While the main characters seemed to take everything normal in a scatterbrained and ADD way (Alice runs off during the middle of a conversation because she sees a rabbit- doesn’t that seem strange and slightly rude?), they seem to take the unusual in stride.  Once Alice is able to establish that, no, this place that is vividly real, where she can be scratched and putrified, where she has been thrown about, chased, and stuffed in a teapot, was, in fact, very real and not a dream, she was ready to fight.  Why she suddenly gained supernatural courage once she realized that she could indeed die instead of just wake up, I can’t explain, and I think that this is why these characters are so vivid.  They are never conventional.  This is the first Tim Burton film that didn’t somewhat disturb me, and I applaud him, and the wonderful cast, especially Anne Hathaway, who neve seemed to be able to decisively place her hands anywhere.

Once again, a successful trip to the movies.