Movie: Alice in Wonderland (2010)

Not too bad, not too bad. I happen to have read Lewis Carrol’s Alice's Adventures in Wonderland two years ago and I remember that it is a book without much plot. Of all the books in the world, this is probably the book that is most like a dream, and dreams are not very coherent most of the time. The charm of the Alice story lies in subtle word jokes (that often require an explanation nowadays, 145 years later) and fancies in imagination. But modern Hollywood requires movies with a plot, a clear storyline.

I can imagine Tim Burton’s headaches as he tries to force the well-known Alice elements into a coherent story. I guess he took another look at the Disney adaptation and then made up a lot of new characters and places to glue the Alice elements together. This will make Alice purists groan, but I can forgive Burton for using his artistic licence. At least he tried to stay true to the dreamlike spirit, although the battle at the end is really stretching it. Burton also tries to get away with it by making his movie a sort of sequel to the first, and Alice is a young adult instead of a little girl (like Steven Spielberg’s Hook was a sequel to Peter Pan). The intro with adult Alice is nice, but the ending in the real world is rushed and awkward (curiously Hook’s ending was too stretched out and overly sentimental).

Burton has also sweetened the story a bit. If we compare this Alice in Wonderland with the book and the Disney version, then the latter two are much more darker and brooding and somehow better suited for adults than children. By removing the darkness, Burton’s Alice in Wonderland has become childish and falls a bit flat. In the end, if you like Burton and if you like odd characters jumping through inventive CG landscapes, you can enjoy it at face value. I love the cat.

IMDB: Alice in Wonderland

Movie: The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Before this movie got claimed by certain teenage subcultures and main character Jack Skellington became a T-shirt icon, The Nightmare Before Christmas entered the lists of greatest animated movies ever made. Tim Burton’s magical marriage between Halloween and Christmas was put off as weird at first, but claimed a cult following and slowly gathered the praise it deserved.

I guess most people would label this movie as “weird”, but not many would fail to see that a lot of meticulously crafted artwork has gone into it. Burton created a weird kind of beautiful that managed to twist puppets (which are often unintentionally nightmarish, like clowns) into charming dark fun. It is a little blessing to approach darkness with such good cheer.

This is the heart and power of the movie and would have been enough to make it a cult classic, but The Nightmare Before Christmas is an allround spellbinding production with excellent voice acting, an original storyline and great music. Years later, Burton would try to make the same movie twice with Corpse Bride, but The Nightmare Before Christmas is unique and already complete in its vision, as if it sprung as a whole from Burton’s forehead. He may have named his movie a nightmare, but I wish I could have a dream like this.

IMDB: The Nightmare Before Christmas

Movie: Big Fish (2003)

The universe is made of stories, not atoms. Tim Burton surely looks at the universe this way, and Big Fish is his testament to storytelling. I guess we all look at our own lives as stories. We look for connections and threads and construct our own personal story out of it. It partly defines who we are. Now, does this story have to be true? A story does not have to be true to be beautiful. And the legacy of one’s life deserves to be rich and beautiful.

Big Fish is a feast for the eyes and the imagination as Burton uses his magical touch on a series of near-possible storylines. The movie is a tapestry of mythical-themed fables that stay enjoyable and fresh throughout the movie and here and there intertwine. Burton keeps the viewer guessing. Is it all real or pure nonsense? We don’t believe in giants and werewolves, but could they just be exaggerations? Ewan McGregor delivers it all with a fresh smile on his face and a big Alabama accent that is simply made for storytelling.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter if the stories are true or not. It only matters that the tales have beauty. The conclusion of this movie could have been stronger, more emotional, but perhaps it is a testament to the idea of this movie that the other, “made-up” ending told by one of the main characters is more beautiful than the real one. It is all great fun, and quietly touching too.

IMDB: Big Fish

Movie: Ed Wood (1994)

I'm sure every one is familiar with the Tim Burton & Johnny Depp duo. They have done lots of succesful movies together, often with composer Danny Elfman thrown in as a third man. Yet in 1994 Tim and Johnny made a movie together that may be their oddest, their least-known but perhaps the one they will be remembered for the most. (Instead of Danny Elfman, Howard Shore did the music this time.)

Ed Wood is about a little Hollywood history, about the real director named Ed Wood. It is a story about a man that does everything right, but nothing works. He had the passion, the enthousiasm, the spirit! Ed Wood believed in himself and made the movies he wanted to make, and was absolutely convinced of himself and of the greatness of his work. But they were bad. His movies were oh so terribly bad and after his death he was called the Worst Director of All Time. Depp plays him with a naive innocence.

It is not a wonder that Ed Wood (the movie) flopped in the US because nobody wants to believe that an enthousiastic passionate worker cannot succede. It is a movie that speaks to everyone who has tried to make something artistic and asks himself: "Am I good enough?". Tim Burton shot the movie in black and white to make it look as if it was produced in Ed Wood's time.

Now all I have to do is watch Wood's "masterpiece" of bad SF, Plan 9 From Outer Space, and see if it is really that terribly, excruciatingly bad...