ALICE IN WONDERLAND (2010) *** You understand, of course, that these Tim Burton-Johnny Depp-Danny Elfman collaborations are going to be an even bigger deal on the years down the road. There will be people who swear by them, the cult will neither go smaller nor deflate in terms of passion. There are other actors in them, fine ones usually and here, but somehow Depp always manages to become the heart and focal point, because Burton sees him that way, and Tim has no difficulty translating such things out the other side of a camera lens. I understand, feel, Tim's attraction to fairy tales more than think he's got a special feel for them. He translates them, but in a manner that becomes more about the translator. That's not always fine depending on who's doing it, for me, but it often works for Tim. So it's a spectacular, dark, psychedelic Alice; and at least the spectacular and psychedelic are appropriate. It's Depp toolin' around as some kind of lost revolutionary so hot about it all that any little ray of light diverts him, it's Elfman for once composing with neither characteristic schmaltz nor brilliance (but mixed waaay up), it's Helena Bonham Carter with a falsie of a forehead, it's all those gloriously absurd things Lewis Carroll created fading softly into the background of a film so irreformatible and diverse that Crispin Glover is almost the currency of normalcy. That's probably where you'd start a review, that Crispin Glover passes for medium in it, that's the first way to get towards explaining everything else.
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