Tag Archives: 3 stars

Alice in Wonderland * * *

Genre: Fantasy

Director: Tim Burton

Writer: Linda Woolverton, based on the books Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

Cast: Johnny Depp, Mia Wasikowska, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Crispin Glover

Voice Cast: Alan Rickman, Stephen Fry, Michael Sheen, Timothy Spall, Christopher Lee 

Running Length: 108 minutes

Synopsis: Alice (Mia Wasikowska) is now 19 years old, and it seems that she has completely forgotten about her first trip down the rabbit hole. However, when she’s practically coerced into a marriage, Alice decides to takes a time out from the proposal party, only to find herself falling down yet another rabbit hole, once again travelling to Wonderland. There, she finds the same cast of oddball characters – the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), Absolem the caterpillar (Alan Rickman), the Cheshire cat (Stephen Fry), and more. And of course there are the Wonderland queens – the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) wants to off Alice’s head, but the White Queen (Anne Hathaway) would like to regain her reign over Wonderland with Alice’s help. The way to do it? Get Alice to use the Vorpal Sword on Frabjous Day to kill the Jabberwocky (Christopher Lee).

Review: There’s no doubt that Tim Burton is a visual genius, and once again it shows in the weird and wonderful depiction of Wonderland in this film. It’s not really kid-friendly, but there’s no denying that the oddity of it all has a queer charm (see the Red Queen’s swollen head for a good example). One wonders how isolated the actors must have been because it seems almost the entire movie is composed of CG imagery.

The flora and fauna of Wonderland is quite possibly almost as detailed as the world of Avatar, but the one differentiating factor is that whilst 3D enhances the Avatar universe, sadly in this case watching the film in 3D will likely diminish the viewing experience. Yes, that’s right – if you have a choice, try not to watch the movie in 3D. The bright colours of the background end up looking muted and dull through 3D glasses, and the experience is not immersive at all. In fact, during the action sequences, 3D actually looks blurry and is not a particularly comfortable viewing experience. Perhaps it’s because Avatar has now set the standard so high, Alice in 3D feels nothing more than a poorly executed gimmick.

This is also a movie where the voice talents fare better than actors who are physically present. Whilst Mia Wasikowska is perfectly decent as Alice, her character is rather colourless to begin with and there’s little depth to speak of. And as always Johnny Depp is cast as yet another quirky Burton-esque reinterpretation of a classic character, though in this instance the performance feels a little perfunctory. My favourite in the movie is actually Helena Bonham Carter, and much as it is totally over the top and she spares no expense in chewing up the scenery, it’s a really fun performance to watch.

One of the biggest issues I have with this incarnation of Alice in Wonderland is how the reimagining has actually turned the movie into a generic fantasy movie starring well-loved characters from the Wonderland universe. This is particularly apparent in the showdown between Alice and the Jabberwocky – the only reasons (I feel) this entire segment exists is to make sure there’s enough fodder for spinoff video games to capitalize on, and to appease cinemagoers who demand action sequences in every movie they watch. Make no mistake – the movie is entertaining enough, and certainly worthy of a trip to the cinema, but there’s this nagging sensation that something had been lost in translation.

Rating:  * * * (out of four stars)

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Invictus * * *

 

Genre: Drama

Director: Clint Eastwood

Writer: Anthony Peckam, based on the novel Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation by John Carlin

Cast: Morgan Freeman, Matt Damon

Running Length: 133 minutes

Opens: 7 January 2010

Synopsis: Based on the inspiring true story of the 1995 Rugby World Cup which followed Nelson Mandela’s (Morgan Freeman) rise to power in 1994, and the incredible run that South Africa managed to attain in the World Cup, despite the odds being heavily stacked against them. Mandela, working together with Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon), manages to unite first the rugby team, and then South Africa as the nation bands together post-apartheid to show their support for the team.

Review: This is the time of year where the “serious movies”, more commonly known as Oscar bait, start coming out of the woodwork in droves. However, much as Eastwood’s Invictus is transparent about its Oscar grab, apart from Morgan Freeman there is little chance of this movie going that much further in the Oscar race. This is due to several reasons.

Whilst Invictus is well-filmed and reasonably soul-stirring, there are multiple lapses in its narrative and the film tends to be a little too heavy-handed at times, which diminishes the power of the movie. That said, although the final outcome of the movie is not a surprise (since it’s based on historical events), the film does manage to capture the audience’s interest and is worth a watch simply for Morgan Freeman’s excellent portrayal as Nelson Mandela. However, Freeman’s character is also the only fully realized one in Invictus – everyone else, Matt Damon included, are two-dimensional and seem to exist only to move the plot along.

Although this is ostensibly a sports movie, the sporting sequences actually play second fiddle to the political scenes. These behind-the-scenes snippets offer an interesting insight into how Mandela maneuvers the participation of South Africa’s Springboks in the Rugby World Cup into a matter of national pride, successfully unifying the country in the unstable post-apartheid times and achieving a very satisfying conclusion.

Much screen time is accorded to a subplot about the integration of Mandela’s security task forces, which used to consist entirely of Afrikaans but now needs to incorporate a team of whites. This is obviously used in the movie to mirror the state of the country itself, but there’s no real outcome to this subplot and begs the question of why so much time was devoted to an eventually inconsequential storyline. In fact, at times Invictus feels like two movies squashed together, and awkwardly so. The audience is even misled into thinking that there will be an attempt on Mandela’s life, but there’s no payoff for this assumption either.

Invictus could have been a truly inspirational sports movie, and though it manages to check off most of the boxes for this genre, the little niggling issues make the film just fall short of greatness. It’s an entertaining film, nonetheless, and definitely still worth the price of admission.

Rating: * * * (out of four stars)

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