At last I've found something to disagree with you on! I love your reviews, but I disagree with some but not all of the points you made. I agree that the movie is a little better when it ambles around a bit and that transformation of this into some sort of epic battle at the end is sort of awkward. I also agree that Johnny Depp wielding a broadsword was out of place and disappointing, though I was distracted by the recent revelation that they had brought Christopher Lee in to do the voice of the Jabberwocky, which had about two lines, maybe he got a discount as a favor for putting him in Charlie in the Chocolate Factory and Corpse Bride, but it would probably still have been cheaper to bring in Kevin Micheal Richardson (no, not Kramer, he's a voice actor, look it up) rather than spend the money on a cameo that very few people would spot. Thus I missed a little bit of the fight between the Hatter and whats-his-name, but what I saw of it I wasn't that impressed with, maybe it was everything else that was going on or maybe it's because I've been taking classes in stage combat for a year and a half now, but at the end of the movie I had to be reminded by the people I watched it with that he had done anything with his sword besides poke the Jabberwocky's tail. I was mainly concerned with confirming my suspicions about several voice actors and wondering who did the soundtrack, it's always Elfman when Tim Burton directs, but I wanted to know because when ever Alice rode across a field the soundtrack was about one note away from being sued by the guy who did the soundtrack to Batman Begins, oh it wasn't as fast paced, but the melody is really similar at that bit to whenever Batman is sitting on a skyscraper looking thoughtful, or perhaps just bored.
But enough about what I agree on, time to disagree. While I see what you mean on some aspects, I think you may have taken the "remaking 80s cartoons" thing too far. It may be just me, but when I go into a remake with no expectations I enjoy it a lot more. I want to clarify here, I have not read the book or it's been so long that I barely remember it, I haven't seen the whole Disney cartoon in perhaps a decade or so (though I had made plans to watch the copy my mother bought on DVD 2 years ago and never opened before I saw this film, I never got around to it) and the most recognizable thing I saw in this film was the Jabberwocky poem, having read that as recently as High School. So I went into the film with only vague recollections of what the original Alice was about, and enjoyed it. There were bits that jogged my memory, such as the bit at the beginning with all the growing and shrinking to get through that door, and bits I were pretty sure weren't in the original story, such as the cat-monkey-thing that's claws make wounds that get gangrene really fast, but in Wonderland gangrene apparently translates to "a bit swollen and a little red." Having heard people complain about it going to be a horrible atrocity (one of which being you, Bob) and seen Alice holding a sword in previews, I was braced for a Lord of the Rings style action film with Johnny Depp jumping in to reference the original book every five minutes. Only to find that in the end I found the actual battle to be a bit lacking and that otherwise I had quite enjoyed the whole experience. So I guess all there is left to say is thanks. Thank you Movie Bob and others for saying how bad this was so I could be pleasantly surprised.
I think if anything, I would complain that the amount they build up the entire "Alice has to kill the Jabberwocky but she doesn't want to" thing is a little disproportionate to how long and exciting the actual battle is. The end battle between Alice and the Jabberywocky, the Hatter and the tall guy and these two epic armies came up a little short for something that was mentioned constantly after Alice's first five minutes in Wonderland. Perhaps Tim Burton likes the word Jabberwocky, because the characters certainly take every opportunity mention it and why it is important. There's also the fact that there is some sort of implied similarity between everyone expecting Alice to marry the man at the beginning and everyone expecting her to kill the Jabberwocky, but since she goes after the Jabberwocky with little argument except for the occasional "I'm not slaying anything, and I couldn't if I wanted to," it just sort of feels like they forgot about it until afterwards, at which point it doesn't seem as important as trying to figure out whether or not they are really trying to squeeze in a romantic subplot between the Hatter and Alice in the last 10 minutes, something I'm still not sure they did on purpose, since nothing happens and only 3 lines even hint that that is what is going on, albeit heavily so. The movie does this kind of thing with a few other points as well, I really thought they were going to reveal that her crazy aunt had gone to Wonderland as well, but she just calls her crazy, at which point I wonder why they included her at all except for a few jokes and to make Alice's ending "this is how it is going to be" speech slightly longer, a speech which it only just now occurs to me is their attempt to wrap up the "what is expected" thing, meaning it was either so subtle or so much of it got cut that it didn't quite work for me. It would have been nice to have an actual battle after the Hatter's "death to the red queen" speech too.
Speaking of which, as I previously mentioned I haven't seen the cartoon or read the book recently, so can anyone tell me if the Hatter was Scottish in any of the other versions? Or was this just an excuse to give Depp a claymore at the end? It's just too bad he didn't pull it out of a hat, or make a hat that folded into a sword, or something else that would be nice and ridiculous.
