Tim burton rewatch! Alice in Wonderland (2010) is considered by many to be Burton’s worst film, and yet it also achieved an astonishing $1 billion at the box office. Something something futterwacken something.

Here’s what happens: Alice Kingsleigh’s thoughts dwell on absurd notions, and she does not want to marry the foppish Hamish Ascot. She then tumbles down a rabbit hole to find herself revisiting another world (or perhaps a dream) that she once visited as a child. But the whimsical Wonderland has become a dystopian “Underland,” where the people are oppressed by the selfish Red Queen. Alice is a chosen one, dubbed “The Alice” and only she can lead the rebellion to restore freedom to Wonderland.

Origin story: The original Alice in Wonderland novel is actually two books, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), and Alice Through the Looking Glass (1871), written by the notoriously eccentric Lewis Carroll. The books are famous for their backwards logic, where the sensible Alice intellectualizes her way through a series of nonsensical characters and situations. The books have never gone out of print, and they’ve been adapted numerous times over the years, including the famous 1951 Disney animated feature.

Outsider theory: Alice spends most of the movie either insisting she is dreaming or actively being the fantasy hero, so she’s not really the outsider here. The better candidate is this version of the Mad Hatter, who was once a person of importance in the queen’s court, but is now an outcast. Unfortunately, this is only illustrated with how he used to dance in happier times. At the end, he dances again, and… well…

Reality breaks through: The movie concludes with Alice, having grown from her adventures in the fantasy world, rejecting society’s romantic norms and instead becoming a successful businesswoman. But is this really a one-to-one metaphor for slaying dragons and leading a rebellion? I don’t know that it is.

Best bits: Cheshire Cat: “All this talk of blood and slaying has put me off my tea.”

Thoughts upon this viewing: It’s not all bad. The opening scenes in the real world, the fall through the rabbit hole, and the growing/shrinking room are all quite good. But then Alice starts gathering her band of heroes, and the movie loses steam. The problem is removing Carroll’s so-called “nonsense logic” and replacing it with a standard fantasy adventure narrative, where our hero falls through a portal to another world and becomes the unlikely leader of the rebellion. This type of story is frowned upon because it’s been done to death. All other criticisms of the movie stem from remixing Alice’s story in this way.

Next: Waves crash upon the rocks.

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