Escape to the Movies: Alice in Wonderland

jboking

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Oct 10, 2008
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I'm not terribly surprised at all. I can't say I agree or disagree with bob, as I haven't seen it yet. Though, I am getting rather sick of Burton. I was thinking about skipping it...but spring break is next week and I have disposable income. I'll do it out of boredom.
 

Sylocat

Sci-Fi & Shakespeare
Nov 13, 2007
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Jaranja said:
Sylocat said:
Again, I thank the Escapist for that ad, which will drastically reduce the number of people with brains who will actually buy that game, thus keeping the multiplayer servers of games I like free of morons.
Wouldn't it just increase the number of people that aren't morons? It would shift the ratio, methinks.
Well, yeah, that's what I meant. Sorry if I was too wordy.
 

Tikicobra

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May 21, 2009
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Who the fuck cares what critics (especially Movie Bob, who I think is just trying to imitate Yahtzee) has to say. Who the hell goes to a movie like this expecting anything more than eye candy and good entertainment anyway? Who gives a shit how bad the story is or that The Mad Hatter has a broadsword? It's a movie! It's not made to be deep and provocative, it's made to be entertaining! And even if someone like Movie Bob thinks it isn't, that really just convinces me even more that it is, because all critics ever seem to have on their minds is looking clever, like they actually care about/understand deep stories and characters.

So all of you guys who wanted to see this and now don't just because some guy on FUCKING ESCAPIST thinks it's bad...

WHAT THE HELL?
 

Insert Comedy Here

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May 22, 2009
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'Twasn't a bad movie, according to meself, but other people in the cinema weren't entirely impressed with it. I heard one parent say to his kid "I'm going to show the you good Alice in Wonderland, the cartoon one."

But, meh. Stephen Fry was a talking Cat.
 

RJ Dalton

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Aug 13, 2009
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Just want to say first, that opening was the second most awesome thing I've seen on this site.

Back on topic: well, shit. I didn't expect anything really outstanding from Tim Burton, but dammit all, I was at least hoping this might turn out okay by virtue of the source material alone. Why can't Tim Burton let the story flow the way it's supposed to instead of fucking around with it until it becomes something else entirely?
 

the1ultimate

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Apr 7, 2009
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Why did they have to ruin Alice in Wonderland? This sounds more like Narnia on drugs.

I didn't actually think Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was terrible, so this is probably the worst Tim Burton movie for me.
 

RebelRising

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Jan 5, 2008
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I skipped the first 30 seconds to get to the review. MovieBob, I know criticism is annoying, but I'd rather you just focus on doing reviews for the people just enjoy your reviews.

Anyways, I agree: Burton's Wonka was rather disappointing.
 

RestamSalucard

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Feb 26, 2010
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To all the people saying that we should stop listening to critics and watch a movie ourselves to determine whether or not we should watch the movie: What is wrong with you? Does basic logic just not come up in your day to day life? Did you get dropped on the head as a kid? Are you just a filmmaker who's peeved at people for calling their crappy work crap? Seriously, I'd like to know why these people keep popping up.

It's like they're just attention whores who say something they think is profound but actually just comes off as pretentious, shallow and empty. If people did what they are suggesting, good movies would have stopped being made a century ago. "Hey, they're going to spend money on our movies anyway. Just make the trailers look pretty and we can fill the rest of the film with Taylor Mead's Ass [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Mead%27s_Ass] for all we care."

I'm starting to get angry at my confusion, so I'll calm my self down at snarking less irritating comments.

MatsVS said:
All reviews are worth exactly as much as the arguments they present to back up their observations, which is why these capsules are inherently worthless if seen as serious works of criticism. Which is fine, because they are amusing.
Hey, Moviebob's got intellegent arguments. He's got intellegent arguments coming out of his ass! [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CompletelyMissingThePoint]

SomeUnregPunk said:
I refuse to watch Avatar since I have strong feelings against bestiality(Zoophilia);
What does Beastiality have to do with anything? You can't be talking about the yoo-hoo between two consenting communicative adults.

Or are you just racist?

RJ Dalton said:
Back on topic: well, shit. I didn't expect anything really outstanding from Tim Burton, but dammit all, I was at least hoping this might turn out okay by virtue of the source material alone. Why can't Tim Burton let the story flow the way it's supposed to instead of fucking around with it until it becomes something else entirely?
Tim Burton has never been good when it comes to adaptations. Even his Batman movies had severe if subtle flaws.

PoisonUnagi said:
1. Stop ripping off ZP
Oh, that's so clever. Did you make that up yourself or did your Mommy help you?

Seriously though, if Bob should stop ripping off Yahtzee, then Yahtzee should stop ripping off Dennis Miller.
 

AvsJoe

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May 28, 2009
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Eeeee... scathing...
Well, I'll still see it but I won't have as high of expectations as I used to.
 

Kuchinawa212

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Apr 23, 2009
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Interesting review bob. I give you that. Tempted to watch it now, just to see the stuff you pinted out about it
 

ssgt splatter

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Oct 8, 2008
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I knew it would be bad. When I first saw the commercials for this movie I thought, wow this movie is going to give a bunch kids a nightmare.
 

LTK_70

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Moviebob, you are very, very annoying when you're not reviewing a movie. Which is fortunately, only a short time in some videos. But still.
 

Andronicus

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Mar 25, 2009
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maninahat said:
Don't be so worried if this adaptation turns out shit. There are about 20 other Alice in Wonderland movies out there, all varying degrees of success in regards to staying true to the original plot/being a decent movie. Hell, there is even a 70s pornographic, comedy musical of Alice in Wonderland (I shit you not).

One of my favourites, besides the old disney cartoon, would be the 1999 NBC television film http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_in_Wonderland_(1999_film). That one at least makes some reference to the fact that Alice through the Looking Glass is a seperate story(i.e - the sequel Tim Burton probably should have tried to make), rather than just lumping characters from either stories into one narrative.
I love that adaption! Seriously, I reckon Martin Short did the best Hatter ever.
Hilarious stuff.

OT: I wasn't planning on watching Burton's adaption in the first place. For the most part, I usually enjoy Burton's movies (and no, I didn't like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but this just looks so far outside of what I would be interested in that I doubt I'll even bother renting it. I'm not going to go around telling people that it's bad, because obviously I can't form that opinion without watching it, but I simply have no interest whatsoever in watching it. MovieBob's video only reinforces that feeling of disinterest.
 

Sonicron

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Mar 11, 2009
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Skeleon said:
Huh, as I actually like his take on Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, I might like this movie too, I guess.
And indeed you most likely will, friend. I went to see the movie yesterday, and save for a few boring stretches it was quite enjoyable.
 

RJ Dalton

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RestamSalucard said:
Tim Burton has never been good when it comes to adaptations. Even his Batman movies had severe if subtle flaws.
I've said this before. Since I'm apparently not afraid to repeat myself, I'll say it again. Tim Burton is not, never has been and probably never will be a very good director in any sense of the word. His visual aesthetic is the only thing that's ever been any good about his movies, but he never seems to know what to do with it. He's terrible at pacing, his stories are terrible, he can't do action for shit (which wouldn't be a bad thing if he didn't insist on trying so much) and he has no sense of subtlety. Tim Burton would be a good guy to have as an executive producer, an idea man; someone behind the scenes directing the artistry and general ideas, but leaving the details to people who are better at the various positions that go into filmmaking. You know, like what George Lucas did with the original Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies.
The thing that angers me so much about Tim Burton is that for how bad he fucks up, his movies could be really good. To disagree with you, there was nothing subtle about what was wrong with Batman Returns. What was wrong with it was obvious: Batman was in it. The basic premise of Batman Returns could have made a really good movie, but this great idea and mostly good story was ruined by them shoehorning elements of the Batman Mythos into it. Batman himself was the most needless character of the whole story, serving no purpose in the film that was not better served by the other characters. What ruined Nightmare Before Christmas was not the story itself, but very bad directing, extremely shoddy pacing and a random action sequence at the end that was stupid, boring and painful. Charlie and the Chocolate factory had excellent casting and wonderful visuals that would have complimented the original story, except that Burton felt the need to change many key elements of the story and several characters, as well as adding a totally bullshit side-story about Wonka's dad being a crazy dentist. James and The Giant Peach was let down once again by his strange need to throw in random action sequences that are terribly directed, badly written and boring to watch.
Burton is just a bad director on the whole.
 

EnigmaHarper

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Charlie is not his worst movie, though it is on the bottom. I wish to serve up a tasty tidbit called Planet of the Apes. What a horrible movie!
 

Deacon Cole

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Out of curiosity, I went to Burton's IMDb page to see what, if any good movies Burton had directed. Not counting short subjects, I'd rate Pee-wee's Big Adventure, Ed Wood, and Big Fish as his better films. Keep in mind, he did not direct nightmare Before Christmas. Even so, I find that film to be grotesquely overrated. In any case, he seems to work better if he is properly reigned but he needs to understand the material and be able to give it what it needs. This is why Planet of the Apes was so terrible. He didn't really get what the movie needed. That flick was shaping up to be Autobots vs. Decepticons (AvD), but never really got that far. Not that it would have been better if it had, but at least it would have went somewhere.

It seems like Hollywood always tries to find some kind of formula for film making or story writing. Understandable since they want their product to be successful. But formulas don't always work. Worse, formulas get stale. Hence why Bob noted that this is the formula Hollywood has been using lately. Now I won't be able to watch any new movie without wondering if it's another AvD, and likely finding it is.

As for this film, I let out a resounding "meh" when it was first announced. Not that a good film adaptation could not be done. Nor that Burton could not do it, even with Johny Depp in it (most overrated actor in the whole world). but I figured it wouldn't be good and lo and behold, apparently it isn't. Turning Wonderland into Narnia was something I didn't see coming. But that is most likely the worst idea in the whole world. Wonderland isn't Narnia and only a moron would try to make it so.

The problem with these epic wars in these overblown toy commercials is that they're homogeneous. You won't be able to tell one from another. Just wait. in a few years, you'll try to find that one scene you thought was nifty in those Narnia movies and you'll search, but not find it because it was in this movie.

Why do they hate giving movies an identity of their own? Why must everything be exactly the same? And didn't Burton already show he can't do epic with Planet of the Apes?