Alice in Wonderland is certainly raking it in this weekend, despite decidedly mixed reviews – both about the film and its less than perfect (indeed, horrid) 3D effects. It has been commented that perhaps Alice is a film too many for the Tim Burton-Johnny Depp marriage. I’d say that moment came when Tim mistook Johnny and Helena Bonham Carter for people who could sing back in Sweeny Todd days. I won’t be seeing Alice in Wonderland because just the thought of it gives me heebiejeebies, but with a superb alternative Tim Burton movie on British TV this weekend, I thought I’d take a quick and completely biased look at some of the films by Tim Burton that I can watch without having to lie down for a week on a therapist’s sofa with an icepack on my head.
The film on TV tomorrow is Mars Attacks! It has an exclamation mark after its name and it richly deserves it. Just compare it with Keanu Reeves’ The Day the Earth Stood Still (an abomination) for instance, a film with a rather similar plot but with no… sparkle, wit, fun! Mars Attacks! has it by the green gallon. Mad pompous scientists with pipes, little irritating dogs, exploding heads, a brilliant alien language (which my partner still mimics when he’s had a few, even now, 14 years on), a president in peril, aliens in Vegas. Sarah Jessica Parker is an irritation but she is more than compensated for by granny with the gramophone. I can never decide which I like more – Mars Attacks! or Galaxy Quest so I’ll take them both.
Despite my Mark Wahlberg issues, I rather liked the revamping of Planet of the Apes, although Helena Bonham Carter, again, did not look her best in her role. I sometimes wonder if Helena must look back on her Merchant & Ivory days and wonder what on earth Tim has done with her, cinematically. And then there was the finest Tim Burton-Johnny Depp vehicle – Sleepy Hollow, which for its atmosphere and dark beauty is second to none for a horror film. It’s all in the suggestion.
Before this, of course, was the film that made Johnny known, the slightly uncomfortable Edward Scissorhands. It’s when I look back at those long ago days of Batman and the classic Beetlejuice (Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice) it makes me wonder where Tim Burton lost his way. I want to like Tim Burton films but I don’t. Before Bride Wars I would always make a point of seeing an Anne Hathaway film, but the draw of the White Queen in Alice is not enough. Maybe the tongue has slipped too far out of the cheek.
The last film of Tim Burton’s that I did enjoy was Big Fish, starring Ewan McGregor. Admittedly I didn’t understand it and I couldn’t telly you the plot now, but that film was a pleasure for the senses but also for the mind. Before Tim Burton took on Alice in Wonderland, he got his mitts on another favourite much-loved book (and film) from my childhood, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Johnny Depp’s Willy Wonka was not good for me.
I’m not sure which of his future projects alarms me more – Dark Shadows, in which vampire Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp) has ‘run-ins with various monsters, witches, werewolves and ghosts’ (quoting IMDb) or Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Admittedly this doesn’t star Johnny Depp but that may be the only thing going for it.
