![]() ![]() The overarching theme is the notion that we are all a product of the ways in our family screwed us up or how we choose to act regardless. ![]() The revelations regarding the White Queen (Anne Hathaway) and the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) threaten to trivialize the whole “Red Queen slaughtered countless people in her terrible reign” thing. Even though Tim Burton is no longer the director, we still have a major character dealing with an inability to gain approval from his father. ![]() This quickly devolves into a “see why every major character is the way they are” prequel-ization that does little good for anyone. Be they good or bad, the female-driven Disney live-action fairy tales paint a compelling portrait of how different women (heroes like Alice and villains like Cate Blanchett in Cinderella) react to would-be patriarchal control.Īs for the actual “Alice in Wonderland” plot, it’s a matter of traveling back in time to “save” The Mad Hatter’s murdered family. It is in these opening moments, along with an abbreviated second-act cameo from Andrew Scott (a deleted subplot?), where Woolverton again suggests that gender norms of the day (and of course in the present day) can’t help but make women “hysterical.” Like any number of recent popcorn entertainments of varying prestige ( Carol, Spy, Neighbors 2), the film posits that women would be perfectly capable of managing their destinies if men wouldn’t always exert their patriarchal control. The first act is rather strong, as Alice returns from the sea only to realize that the men in her life (along with her mother) have conspired to screw her over. She does travel through time and solve a mystery or two, but she mostly observes the actions of others and takes metaphorical notes. Yet, in the grand scheme of things Alice is once again made to merely observe the madness around her and learn the particular rules laid out by “Time” played by Sasha Baron Cohen. No, it doesn’t go nuts with the whole “Alice must do X, Y, and Z to fulfill her destiny!” shtick of the first film. ![]()
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December 2022
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