Alice in Wonderland, and 3D.

I finally watched a movie that uses the new 3D technology. After watching Up at home and Avatar in a non-3d theater, I went to see Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. I thought it was about time I finally tried it out and I was excited that it would be with a movie with so much visual potential. Conclusion: I'm never ever going to pay for 3D again. Oh, and I didn't really like the movie either.
I had never seen the theater like that. The people were crowding the reception and bar area completely, to the point that it was terribly hot in there and you got dizzy from the lack of oxygen. I knew the name "Tim Burton" was the new weapon if you wanted to sound cool and educated in movie matters (just sound, not necessarily be). Everybody loves Tim Burton. Everybody loves how "obscure" and "twisted" he is. All I know is I'll never again go see one of his movies less than one full week after the premiere.
But onto the movie experience. I remember first seeing the trailer, and being a bit excited about it. Not necessarily because of Tim Burton, although I wouldn't be surprised if the movie had been good, but because the original Alice in Wonderland story is, to me, very dear (including Looking Glass). It's an amazing display of creativity and refined imagination, and because we live in a world where art is too often the recycling of hackneyed concepts, I give Lewis Carroll much credit. The story practically begs for a distinct dark and almost macabre look, and I'm not the only one who recognized this potential when creating a visual representation of the story - I suggest you check out, for example, the trailer for the popular computer game American McGee's Alice. Although this is probably a way too stretched version of how Carroll imagined it, I can still see how they made the leap from the book to the game. As I watched the trailer for the first time I knew Carroll was, much before Burton, tortuous and wicked. Burton had his path already mapped out if he was aiming for "twisted".
Now, to my amazement, he didn't. It was only when in line to buy the tickets that I understood what was making me so uneasy every time I saw the movie poster: the Disney signature. Turned out I was right to feel weird about it, as pretty much everything was Disneyfied, seriously dragging the movie away from the original story.
I was pissed at various moments at how common the movie was feeling. First off, while still in the real world (before Alice falls in the rabbit hole), I didn't understand why the immense and repetitive amount of hints and parallels between the real world and wonderland. The rabbit running by repeatedly, the blue caterpillar on the unsurprisingly idiotic fiancé, and even the future mother-in-law who (like in every unrealistic or children's movie, is the polarized extreme evil with absolutely no good in her) hates white roses. I found myself thinking "Yes, hints. Wonderland. I get it, enough of it" over and over. Pretty distracting. It was like listening to a person who keeps repeating something in different terms, even though you keep telling her you got it already:

"My car is blue. As in the color of the sky!"
"Yes I know blue."
"You know, like the Gs in Google"
"Yeah I got it. It's blue, I know blue"
"Like the guys in the Blue Men Group, do you see?"
"Yes! Blue! How hard can it be! I got it!"
"Like the ocean!"

Moving on.
It might have been pressure from Disney, I'm not sure, but it seemed to me like Burton got stuck in the middle when deciding which way to go with the look of the film. It's mostly the overused color rich fantasy look you've seen in other recent movies, but with a spot of a darker theme that you noticed, for example, in some character's eye bags and the White Queen's make up and overall appearance. This is wrong for me. The middle's not always where the virtue is, specially not in movies and visual media. You either go for soft, or you go for dark. It's like taking a picture of the horizon. You either frame the horizon line near the top of the picture, drawing attention to the ground, or you frame it near the bottom making it a picture about the sky. Framing it exactly in the middle gets you a picture that doesn't communicate anything (may have exceptions).
It must have been Disney in those mini comedy moments in the middle of big supposedly dramatic sequences, like when the hare tries to hide behind a cat that evaporates into invisibility. It must have been Disney when the movie, just like every fantasy movie of today, is just a crescent of tension until it blows up into one big final battle scene composed of medieval sword fighting and dragon slaying in iron armor (I know!). But then, the Pirates of the Caribbean isn't as mediocre as this movie was, so I'll just stop trying to separate Disney's choices from Burton's.
One more thing that heavily bothered me was the music. I know Danny Elfman is a sort of god for some people, and I admire much of his work, but I couldn't help thinking of Harry Potter throughout the whole movie. Nothing more to say about it, I think this comparison speaks for itself and surely if you pay attention you'll see what I mean.
Overall, I was very disappointed. But I must remind myself of something I need to talk about in the next post: smart moviemaking. Noted.

Now about that 3D... Wow, never again. Not that its terrible (or maybe that's it), it just doesn't add anything to the film. And there's a golden rule that every video editor/producer knows: if it doesn't add anything, take it out. It's a different experience, sure, and I had a lot of fun during the Gato Fedorento commercial where balls and popcorn and remote controls were flying all around. Hell, I even got a couple of scares thinking something was flying through the room towards me. Then the movie started, it was still amazing in the first 10 minutes, and after that I didn't care anymore. I didn't forget about though, because it was impossible. It makes me very aware of my visual perception, and that made the movie seem much longer. First off, the subtitles were too small, yellow (!?) and a bit out of focus in that way only 3D movies are (like an imperfect overlapping of two images). Then it had too many elements that seemed to suffer from the same weird lack of focus, which drove my brain crazy. I was honestly confused not knowing where to look at sometimes. There's a reason the depth of focus is used so many times: it tells the spectator's brain where to look, what's important. It's one of the rules of human perception. This 3D movie was pretty hostile in that aspect, I'm not sure I'm ever gonna get used to it. I'm surely not getting used to paying 7,5€ for a ticket to a movie that's gonna mess up my brain and make me self conscious for 2 hours. The point of movies is immersion, not constantly reminding me I'm watching a movie. All I know is that at the ending scenes of the movie, after Alice returns from Wonderland to the real world, I was happy to take off the glasses in a couple of shots where there was no 3D stuff. It felt so good. My brain had been tense for 2 hours and finally relaxed. "Home sweet home".

Fell free to use the comment option for opinions on the movie and the 3D.