Alice In Wonderland

So I saw Alice In Wonderland. It was alright.

Here's how I reached that earth shattering verdict:

I liked the plethora, nay the cornucopia, of well-realised, totally mentile characters. HelBo and her spectacularly massive noggin were a joy to behold. Tweedledum and Tweedledee were also great, so well done to Matt Lucas and Matt Lucas. I also liked Mia Wasikowska as Alice, especially in that suit of armour. I don't know why but I found that a surprisingly pleasant sight.

I didn't like The Mad Hatter though. He kept slipping into a Scottish accent for no clear reason except that he's mad, and it got on my wick very quickly. Also, I've said it before but animated characters voiced by famous actors is massively distracting. Alan Rickman and Stephen Fry are Alan Rickman and Stephen Fry, even if they look like a blue caterpillar and a floating cat respectively. And I spent the first half of the film trying to place the mouse's voice, and when I realised it was Barbara Windsor I spent the second half waiting for it to scream "GERRAAAATAMOIPAAAB!!"

The whole film doesn't quite settle down and hang together properly for some reason. I never felt part of that universe and couldn't get emotionally attached to any of the characters (unless they were wearing a suit of armour). As a result I had no interest in the final battle, the outcome of which was foretold in the first 20 minutes by some nondescript prophecy. And where was the Tim Burtony gothic darkness? It used to be that 'A Tim Burton Film' meant massive literal and textual contrasts of light and dark; now it means 'starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter'.

Anyway, none of that was awful, it just meant that it was the very definition of 'alright'.

Some bonus thoughts:

• Alice In Wonderland challenges Avatar for worst and most inappropriate end credits song. How is Avril Lavigne still getting work?
• Renowned crackpot Crispin Glover, in a film full of nutcases and oddballs, is remarkably normal in this. Surprising when you take this into account, which was brought to my attention by The Incredible Suit viewer Adam Barnard:

I'll leave you to gather your jaws up off the floor while I continue to sulk in a corner about how comprehensively average 2010 is turning out to be.

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Titanic Gigaplex

The Vue cinema chain has recently opened a chuffing titanic gigaplex in the Westfield shopping centre in London, itself the biggest cathedral of consumerism in the known universe.

“The Future Of Cinema”, Vue call it. “With 14 massive screens Vue Westfield offers unrivalled choice of films,” their website shrieks. This week they’re showing TWENTY-NINE different films at one point or another, including new release Alice In Wonderland “in stunning 3D [which] has to be seen to be believed and is a truly unique experience that cannot be seen outside of the cinema environment!”

Well, that’s all lovely. But I’d quite like to visit this amazing temple of film to see Alice In Wonderland in 2D, what with 3D being a bit of an annoying gimmick and all and costing an extra £2.80 on top of an already overpriced ticket. They are showing Alice In Wonderland in 2D, right? Surely on one of their 14 massive screens offering unrivalled choice of films they’re screening a brand new movie in good old flatvision, yes?

No.

If you want to see Alice In Wonderland at Vue Westfield you have no choice but to damn well cough up £11.50 and spend two hours having Johnny Depp jamming his fists into your eye sockets and thumping the ‘headache’ button in your cerebral cortex until your brains bleed out of your nostrils and you have to go home weeping into your brain-filled hanky.

The Incredible Suit doesn’t download films illegally, doesn’t buy knocked off DVDs from Chinese street vendors and doesn’t even walk out of one film that's just finished and into another that's just starting without paying, although God knows it’s easy enough to do so. But I have no sympathy with the industry when it bleats about people doing any or all of the above when they’ve got such a cynical and reprehensible attitude towards the cinemagoing public.

You’ll be unsurprised to hear that flushed with victory over my recent rant at Cineworld Enfield I’ve fired off a strongly-worded email to Vue to let them know exactly what I think. I really am that cheesed off / anal.

In the meantime why not take a deep breath, relax and watch this charming 1903 (1903!!) version of Alice, recently put up on the BFI’s completely brilliant YouTube channel? Or go and read the book. Either would be a victory for consumer power.



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A Big Pair Of Funbags With Cherries On Top

Well if there’s one thing that Movie Santa delved deep into his sack for over Christmas, it’s a sleighload of trailers for filmy delights we can look forward to, or look forward to ignoring, over 2010. Let’s have a look at some of them together, shall we?

Clash Of The Titans

Everything inside me tells me this is going to be so awful that I’d rather have carnal relations with Medusa, but this trailer’s quite good isn’t it? I can’t be doing with all that rock music, and I think they’ve blown it by showing the Kraken, but this looks like silly fabness on toast to me.

Iron Man 2

I can take or leave the first one, but Iron Man 2, or Iron 2 Man as it appears to be called at the end of the trailer, looks like it might be taking things a bit more seriously. Let’s hope it’s more Spider-Man 2 than The Dark Knight, eh? Oooh, controversial.

Robin Hood

It’s Gladiator 2, set in the East Midlands! Groovy. I can’t bear Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott doesn’t do it for me any more, but I’ll go and see this because you have to go and see a new Ridders film, it’s the law. Rubbish trailer though.

Alice In Wonderland

New Tim Burton films must also be seen by law despite their decreasing quality levels, although this one actually looks quite spectacular. In a hallucinogenic acid trip kind of way. I imagine.

Knight & Day

Cruise and Diaz are slowly edging away from ‘must-see’ to ‘barely tolerable’, but this looks like a big pair of funbags with cherries on top. And no, I’m not referring to Cameron Diaz’s hooters.

Cop Out

I don’t know what in the name of John McClane is going on here. Bruce Willis appears to have regressed to Hudson Hawk levels of comedy, and that other guy, who seems to be called Tracy, is about as funny as medieval methods of haemorrhoid removal. Has Kevin Smith made a good film since Clerks? No.

Hot Tub Time Machine

John Cusack! Time travel! The 1980s! Chevy Chase! What’s not to love? Nothing, that’s what. Best film of 2010. That’s a cast-iron The Incredible Suit guarantee.

Inception

OK, so obviously this is clearly going to be the best film of 2010. I never said the Hot Tub Time Machine guarantee was cast iron, did I? I did? Oh. Well forget it. Inception is going to be a mind-blowing cake with brain-frazzling icing and hundreds and thousands made of tiny shards of holy crap that's amazingness. That’s a cast-iron The Incredible Suit guarantee.

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Sweet Zombie Jesus

According to this article on the BBC News website, legendary minger Johnny Depp is so uninterested in watching himself in his movies that he “does not even check his on-screen appearance during the shooting of a film”. Now understandably he’s a busy chap, what with all those pesky movies interfering with his other activities like washing up, playing Facebook Scrabble with Orlando Bloom and making endless cups of tea for his demanding missus Vanessa Paradis, but it strikes me that he might be missing something here.

You see, he probably trusts his hair and make-up team to do their job properly, and as a result he thinks he looks like this in all his movies:
But somewhere along the line somebody’s been playing a cruel practical joke on the Deppster, and in some of these films he’s gone out looking, well, a little bit odd. A touch silly, you might even say. Occasionally, to be honest, he looks almost as ridiculous as when Ian Beale grew that moustache in EastEnders.

I felt it my duty to point out to Johnny what he looked like in some of his flicks, and I can tell you he was quite cross indeed. Here are some of the shots I showed him, along with his responses:

Sweeney Todd

“Oh dear me”

Pirates Of The Caribbean

“Oh crap, would you look at that”

Before Night Falls

“What in the name of Britney Spears?!?!”

Edward Scissorhands

“SWEET ZOMBIE JESUS AND A BUSLOAD OF BURNING NUNS ON A FLAMING CRUCIFIX, WHAT IN SATAN’S BOXERS IS THAT?!?!”

Alice In Wonderland

At this point Johnny threw up out of his eye sockets, which wasn’t a pretty sight I can tell you, so I thought it prudent to leave it at that.

With that valuable service selflessly carried out, I left Vanessa to clean up the mess and made a swift exit before she set their pet Tim Burton on me.