Alice In Wonderland

Until I saw this film, Alice In Wonderland used to scare me. The original Disney cartoon scared the hell out of me and until I saw Tim Burton's version, it still did. Now I'm no longer afraid of Alice In Wonderland, which I guess is a good thing since it's not a horror film. But to me it always was.

Since it's been many years since I've watched the cartoon, I'd lost my familiarity with the story and so felt I came into this film quite unknowing when it came to the story. A story which takes a while to get going, too long in my opinion. I was expecting from the word go to be sucked into the world of Tim Buton. But the beginning was very ordinary and could have been made by anyone. It wasn't until Alice ran away and then followed the rabbit down the rabbit whole that I thought, now we're getting started.

But I think it was Danny Elfman's music that did this for me, more than the film. His music is amazing. However, one thing that slightly pulled me out of the film was when I heard Elfman's 7 note main theme and then realised seconds later that if you add one more note on the end then you get a theme from Avatar. It's the beginning of the track "Becoming One Of "The People" / Becoming One With Neytiri" from the Avatar Soundtrack. But once I'd worked out where I'd heard the theme before, I quickly got over it.

I watched it in 3D. Now after seeing Avatar in 3D I was expecting it to have raised the bar on 3D films, which it most definitely did. However, Alice In Wonderland drops it back down to it's original place. I'd have preferred to have watched it without the 3D as I didn't feel it added anything at all to the film. And in fact sometimes I had to take my glasses off to make sure it was in 3D and it wasn't blurry enough without them.

Alice In Wonderland is simply average. Not up to Tim Burton's usual standards I don't think. But if you're looking for something to do then it will definitely kill a few hours.