By Sam Bennett, guest writer
Watch your step. You may fall into an enormous rabbit hole, tumbling and tumbling down until you realize you’re not yourself anymore. You may even question if you are even still in your theatre seat. When going to see this movie, do not expect a movie filled with cutesy animals and a girl who is completely oblivious to all around her, following a rabbit on a very important date. Tim Burton has taken the story up a notch. Or two. The animals and characters in this film are far more dramatic and serious, all fitting in quite well with the dark setting of the whole movie itself.
In this version, the main character, Alice Kingsley, has grown up among many wealthy families and is forced to marry at a young age, being a tradition of women in that time period in England. After seeing a rabbit scurrying about some hedges, she decides to follow it and falls into a large rabbit hole. Upon awaking, she discovers that everything is upside down. Things are smaller to her as they would be on the upper surface. Soon after drinking a potion making her smaller, she opens the door to Wonderland and embarks on a wonderful journey to save Wonderland from the Red Queen.
Knowing that much of the younger generation has grown to love the Disney cartoon version of Alice in Wonderland, this movie will be a sell out. Even if regular moviegoers don’t know anything about the Alice in Wonderland story, he or she will know the name of Tim Burton, one of the greatest movie directors in history. He is already well known for his successes with directing Nightmare Before Christmas and Edward Scissorhands. After seeing the Alice in Wonderland trailer, those in the younger generation may even question… “Am I mad? How madly insane could I be to see this film?”
The answer to that my friends is… “You’re only as mad as a Hatter.”