Grim Illumination
Alice in Wonderland
Directed by Tim Burton
Runtime: 108 min.
The Secret of Kells
Directed by Tomm Moore, Nora Twomey
Runtime: 75 min.
TIM BURTON SUFFERS the same fate as misunderstood actors. He gets miscast in big-budget prestige productslike the new 3-D Alice in Wonderlanddepressingly at odds with his always-odd sense of satire and grotesquerie. His 2008 film of Stephen Sondheims Sweeney Todd was, at least, a pretty-looking debacle. But his Alice in Wonderland is determinedly grim and dour-looking. It never displays the brilliance of pure inspiration that makes the Irish animated film The Secret of Kells one of the most beautiful works of animation ever. Too bad Burton didnt essay The Secret of Kells.
The only thing missing from The Secret of Kells lovely concept (about young Brendan helping 16th-century monks create the illuminated paintings of a Celtic holy book), is a sense of spiritual devotionthe kind of trepidation and wonderment that Burton is usually good at. Instead, The Secret of Kells is plotted commerciallyto be an adventure movie, rather than one of faith. Its saving grace is directors Tomm Moore and Nora Twomeys decision to follow the style of lluminated manuscripts.The movie glows. Its always aesthetically thrilling, using glyphs and graphics to evoke gothic art and Celtic culture (like Brendan running through the margins of a triptych), which advance the conventions of animated movies.
Surprisingly, Burton brings little such awe to Alice in Wonderland.Working against Disneys definitive 1955 animated version, Burton uses 3-D to create a mixture of real and surreal, fantasy and allegory. Problem is, Spike Jonze already aced such post-modern aesthetics in the terrific (but unpopular) Where the Wild Things Are. Burtons film seems confused rather than magical. His Alice, the lanky Mia Wasikowska, a Paltrowian blond, interacts with creatures from the Underworld (previously met when she was pre-pubescent) with simple bafflement. Instead of the erotic symbolism that fueled Neil Jordans superb Little Red Riding Hood update, The Company of Wolves (1985), or the philological complexity of Spielbergs Peter Pan remake Hook, Burton emphasizes an asexual, thus less interesting, approach. (The Linda Woolverton script is disastrously family-friendly and dull.)
Except for the evanescent Cheshire Cat, Burtons effects are wonderless. Helena Bonham Carter supplies some humor as the heart-craniumed Red Queen (Off-with-theirheads! she repeatedly snaps), but 3-D makes her rival the White Queen (Anne Hathaway) dingy and unfocused.The climactic battle between Alice and the Jabberwocky looks like an outtake from Avatar; it suggests that the real auteur of this film is not the mismatched Burton but the anonymous F/X technicians controlling/ruining todays film content. Burtons film feels no different than the formulaic The Golden Compass or The Chronicles of Narnia:The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
But The Secret of Kells has a look youll rememberbecause its wonderment is related to Western aesthetic heritage (even the cartoon skin tones are culturally correct). Burtons Alice in Wonderland shows that this formerly idiosyncratic artiste has become a hack. Not even Johnny Deppmiscast to play the Mad Hatter like Edward Scissorhandscan disguise Burtons failure. Depps break-dancing finale is the sorriest movie spectacle since the Ewoks disco dance in Return of the Jedi.