-John Berry
3/11/10
--------Saturday night I was able to catch the latest mega 3D offering of Alice in Wonderland. Again this is an instance of a movie my girlfriend was more excited about seeing than I was. However I am a big fan of the new 3D movement and try to support it whenever I find a movie tolerable enough to see in the format. I am really just looking for stuff to watch until Iron Man 2 and Kick Ass comes out. For me the peak of the evening was the TRON: Legacy preview. Not to say Alice in Wonderland was a bad movie, because it most certainly is not a bad movie. It’s just that the new TRON offering looks about as bad-ass as anything can.
--------Back to Alice in Wonderland. I was quite entertained with this movie. I wouldn’t call it epic, however it was fun. I cant quite put my finger on it however this movie didn’t seem to have the same level of 3D in your face pop that Avatar did. I went to the same theater and sat in roughly the same place so I don’t understand why. It was still done very well. I still enjoyed the visual experience quite thoroughly. I am of the opinion that the level of enjoyment between the 2D and 3D versions of Alice in Wonderland is a lot closer than it would be in Avatar. Of course that is just a theory since I have seen neither of these movies in 2D.
--------One thing that was really cool about this movie was the playing card soldiers. I have never been all that impressed with previous versions of card soldiers. In fact I have never really given them much thought at all. They were just part of the whole silliness that is the Wonderland mythology. I never saw them as any kind of actual warriors. This latest incarnation of the iconic playing card soldiers is a vast improvement. These guys now look like they could kick someone’s ass. Not mine of course, but someone.
--------Another
thing that really got me going was the heavy dosage of vorpal sword
in this movie. You really can’t go wrong with a vorpal sword,
and in that department this movie delivers. Going into this movie I
was under the misconception that the vorpal sword was a Dungeons and
Dragons thing. I remember my one and only vorpal sword, it was actually
a +3 vorpal scimitar and I received it when I was thirteen years old.
I have seen only a couple since then however I never again was able
to get my hands on one. So after watching this movie with its vorpal
sword this and it vorpal sword that I went ahead and wikipediad vorpal
sword. As it turns out the first mention of a vorpal sword occurred
in 1871 in the poem “Through the Looking Glass” and the
really cool part is that Carroll himself doesn’t even have a meaning
for the word that he first penned. Raise your hand if you thought the
word vorpal had an actual meaning. Another thing I discovered while
researching vorpal swords this picture.
--------I am going from memory at this point, however a picture is featured very prominently in the movie that is at the very least a very faithful reinterpretation of this picture from the original poem in 1871. Like I said I am going from memory so it is quite possible they used the actual picture. Either way the Jabberwocky looks a lot like this version. I found that to be a nice touch. Props to English illustrator Sir John Tenniel (1820-1914).
--------Now
I am by no means an expert on the whole Alice in Wonderland mythos. I
have seen the movies but I never read the books. It has however been a
long time. Some people are really into this story and I am not one of
those guys. However I am familier with the characters. To me the coolest
interpretation of a character was the Chesire Cat. The way they handled
him was imaginative and fun to watch. The catapiller voiced by Alan Rickman
was also really cool. In fact the only character I didn’t like was
the Mad Hatter, and that is a shame because I really like Johnny Depp
as an actor. To me it was silly stupid not silly clever. In closing I
would say Alice in Wonderland is a fun movie. Nothing spectacular but
a good way to spend a couple hours. I was never bored while watching it.