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Alice in Wonderland [DVD] [2010] | ![Alice in Wonderland [DVD] [2010]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61jYHxUDvNL._SL160_.jpg)
| Director: Tim Burton
Actors: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Crispin Glover, Anne Hathaway, Mia Wasikowska
Studio: Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment
Category: DVD
List Price: £19.99
Buy New: £9.98
as of 6/9/2010 13:41 BST details
You Save: £10.01 (50%)
New (26) Used (8) Collectible (2) from £4.99
Seller: encorerecords
Rating:  129 reviews
Sales Rank: 61
Format: Anamorphic, Colour, PAL, Widescreen
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Audio Description)
Rating: Parental Guidance
Region: 2
Aspect Ratio: 16:9 - 1.78:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 104 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
EAN: 8717418256029
ASIN: B0033WRUN2
Theatrical Release Date: 2010
Release Date: June 4, 2010
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review
The marriage of director Tim Burton with the darker edges of the Alice In Wonderland story seems, on paper, to be an impressive match. And to a point, it is: Burton’s film explodes with colour and style, bringing a real sense of imagination to the classic Lewis Carroll stories. Alice In Wonderland isn’t perfect, though. It’s, at heart, far more conventional than you may be expecting, and the beefing up of the Mad Hatter’s role to accommodate the casting of Johnny Depp is problematic. That said, Depp’s performance is fine, even if it’s Helena Bonham-Carter who steals every scene she’s in. And Burton also wisely casts a strong supporting cast of British thespians, who don’t get enough screen time, but make the most of what they get. The end result, however, is a fun telling of an engaging story. And while Tim Burton’s take on Alice In Wonderland is far from the best filmed take on the source material, it’s nonetheless a solid family movie. It also looks stunning on Blu-ray. The colourful production design comes across wonderfully well, in vibrant 1080p, and the enveloping sound mix matches it too. And given how often the film is likely to be re-spun over the years, it’s easily the best way to own the film. --Jon Foster
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 129
 Darkly brilliant sequel to Lewis Carroll's original stories June 6, 2010
Marshall Lord (Whitehaven, UK)
40 out of 55 found this review helpful
A clever family film in which the 19-year old Alice returns to the magical world which she had originally visited at the age of six but had convinced herself was just a dream.
This is a "marmite" film e.g. one that some people love and a significant number of other people really hate. I was one of the people who loved it.
The story fuses elements of Lewis Carroll's original books "Alice in Wonderland" and "Alice through the looking glass," particularly the poem "Jabberwocky." It is more of a sequel than a re-interpretation though there are elements of both.
This film is significantly darker in tone than, say, the classic Disney film or even the original books, and I would not recommend this for a very young child who might find certain scenes frightening. However, my two eight-year-olds enjoyed the film and had little difficulty with it (they hid their eyes or behind mummy once or twice). The story appears to be at least as much intended for the adult members of the family as for the children, and the saccharine sweetness of most interpretations of the Wonderland story are almost wholly absent.
In places this film is very funny, exquisitely beautiful, or very exciting, and often several of those things at once. The first thing which makes it fun is the many excellent performances by the star-studded cast.
Mia Wasikowska is delightful as the 19-year old Alice, and Johnny Depp suitably manic as the Mad Hatter. He plays this role in an entertainingly zany and unpredictable way, most of which worked for me, though some aspects of the performance - the way he unpredictably turns on and off a strong Scots accent, for instance - may not work for everyone.
The villain of the piece is an evil queen played by Helena Bonham Carter. In terms of Lewis Carroll's books, this character is an amalgamation of the Queen of Hearts from "Alice in Wonderland" with the Red Queen from "Alice through the looking glass." In terms of how Helena Bonham Carter plays the Red Queen, her mannerisms, style, childishly imperious arrogance, self-centred megalomania, impulsiveness, and even her tone of voice are quite blatantly derived from Queen Elizabeth the First as played by Miranda Richardson in the second series of Blackadder (link: Blackadder 2 - The Entire Second Series [1986] [DVD]). For me this works brilliantly, though I can see why some people, especially those who never saw Blackadder or didn't like it, may not get the joke.
Crispin Glover is amusing as the Red Queen's evil henchman Stayne (the Knave of hearts).
The Red Queen's sister and antithesis (the White queen), is played by Anne Hathaway, who comes over as irritatingly goody-goody: I think this was meant to be quite deliberate.
Much of the show is stolen by the CGI characters, particularly the Cheshire Cat (voiced by Stephen Fry), Absalom the blue caterpillar (voiced by Alan Rickman,) and the Dormouse (voiced by Barabara Windsor). Where in the books and the first film the Dormouse is a soporific character, in this film she comes over as Reepicheep on steroids. The Jabberwocky is a looming threat for most of the film but when it finally appears for the climax, a combination of superb special effects and a marvellously threatening voice provided by Christopher Lee make the beast magnificently scary.
Other cast members worth a mention include Tim Piggott Smith who has a charming cameo as Lord Ascott, the business partner of Alice's father: Geraldine James as his ghastly wife who wants Alice to marry their equally ghastly son Hamish (Leo Bill), and Tim Spall as the voice of a bloodbound called Bayard.
The artwork was stunning: in places "Underland" is incredibly beautiful, in other places it looks ruined and devastated for reasons which soon become obvious but which I don't want to spoil the story by giving away. Several creatures which are just names in the books - the frumious bandersnatch, for instance - are brought magnificently to life by CGI in this film.
(The original manuscript which Lewis Carroll gave to Alice Liddell was called "Alice's Adventures Under Ground" and the name "Wonderland" was only added when the book was subsequently published. In the film the characters refer to the magic realm where most of the action takes place as "Underland" and one of them suggests light-heartedly that the six-year-old Alice had misheard the name as "Wonderland.")
These days the viewer is used to films with special effects of such a high quality that we tend to take them for granted, but the special effects were particularly brilliant in this film. The manner in which Alice is seen to grow to much above her normal size or shrink to be far smaller, the manner in which the Red Queen's soldiers look like playing cards while those of the White queen look like chess pieces, the ruined landscape of Underland, and particularly the way the Cheshire Cat fades into and out of existence, all made impossible things look as real as you could hope for.
For Lewis Carroll purists: the film clearly comes down on the side of the debate which says that the character of Alice is largely fictional, and not based on the real person (Alice Liddell, later Alice Hargreaves) for whom the story was written. Towards the end of the film Alice gives her surname as Kingsley, and her father had been a businessman with ambitions to set up a trade route to the Far East. In real life, Alice Liddell's father was Headmaster of Westminster School when she was born and shortly thereafter became Dean of Christ Church, Oxford. It was at that time that the Reverend Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll's real name) became a friend of the Liddell family.
Overall I think this is the best Tim Burton film I have seen.
Magnificent! April 19, 2010
Mr. P. G. Bronks (Sheffield UK)
30 out of 42 found this review helpful
I have seen this film in 3D and it is the most magnificent entertainment I have had for sometime. I am 69 years old but it made me feel 14 again! The animation and graphics are sensational and the story does not suffer from the new twist.
In my opinion, Tim Burton, as a director, and Johnny Depp, as an actor, were made for each other. They go together like bread and butter.
Great July 9, 2010
C. Ogborne (South Wales, GB)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is a lovely film to watch, and Johnny Depp is excellent as the Mad Hatter.
Thoroughly enjoyable.
Hugely enjoyable fantasy April 3, 2010
Captain Pugwash (UK)
18 out of 26 found this review helpful
It's far easier to write a critical review than a complimentary one - fortunately this movie was so good I'm going to enjoy praising it anyway. Tim Burton (who else?) clearly had a ball re-imagining Lewis Carroll's surreal fantasy, whilst Mia Wasikowska's nineteen year old Alice is a thoroughly twenty-first century `hero'; playing both beautiful woman and sword-wielding, commerce mastering burgeoning world leader - a woman putting men in their place whilst charming everyone she meets with her femininity and largesse.
Johnny Depp's orange-haired, white-faced Mad Hatter will of course steal all the attention, but Helena Bonham-Carter's bulbous headed tyrannical Red Queen is a worthy addition to the celluloid ranks of evil rulers, meanwhile a host of familiar faces (and voices) pop up to bolster the film's star quality and overall class.
Whilst the ferocious Jabberwocky, and snarling Bandersnatch may give children under 6 a few nightmares, this is definitely family-friendly fare, with enough in it to satisfy fans of epic LOTR style armies, fantasy creature fanatics, and those who simply like their movies to have plenty of underplayed humour.
Tim Burton does it again! March 14, 2010
Marlyly (London - UK)
10 out of 15 found this review helpful
Set about 10 years after her first adventure in Wonderland, Alice has spent her childhood and teenage years convinced Wonderland is just a figment of her over-active imagination; a dream that, despite re-visiting her every night, is still only just a dream. Her beliefs are put to the ultimate test however when, at a garden party (where she has just been proposed to by the intolerable Lord Ascott), Alice falls back down the rabbit hole and begins a whole new adventure in Wonderland.
Defiant none of this is really happening, Alice shies away from her Wonderland 'destiny' - to slay the Jabberwocky , thus stopping the Red Queen's tyrannical rule and allowing the White Queen to return to her rightful place as ruler of Wonderland, retuning peace to the kingdom. However as the film progresses, Alice not only begins to believe in Wonderland, but also in her own abilities and her inner strength.
This is the 7th collaboration between actor Johnny Depp and director Tim Burton, and despite my insistence that Burton needs to branch out and find new male actors to take on lead roles, I can't deny that the pair work brilliantly together. Johnny Depp is funny, disturbing and utterly believable as the mentally unstable Mad Hatter (Jonathan Ross has claimed that this is Depp's finest role and though I don't agree, I do think it is one of his best). Helena Bonham Carter (Tim Burton's real life spouse) has starred in 6 of his films and once more, though I think Burton should give other actresses a chance, there's no denying Bonham Carter's talent and I think she easily gave the stand out performance of the entire film as the delightfully evil Red Queen.
I watched this film in 3D and despite thoroughly enjoying the effects I think it is a film that can equally be as enjoyable in 2D, unlike Avatar that relies on it's 3D special effects to maintain it's 'wow' impact. Continuing with the Avatar comparisons, both films were mainly set in an imaginary world - in Avatar it's the planet Pandora, inhabited by the blue creatures the Na'Vi. In Alice in Wonderland the magical world is obviously Wonderland - and the 3D effects greatly help the viewer feel part of these impossible worlds. But whereas Pandora was breathtakingly beautiful, Wonderland didn't feel very wonderful at all - in typical Tim Burton style it was quite a spooky, gothic, off-beat and dark place, and visually wasn't exactly a joy to look at. However, as Wonderland is under the rule of the Red Queen it is supposed to be a world in ruin so that can be forgiven.
The plot (as I've already outlined above) is interesting, engaging and though a little cliched and predictable, still enjoyable. I wasn't aware however at the start of the film that this was Alice's 'return' to Wonderland and spent a great portion of the film just as confused as Alice was as to whether she was the 'wrong Alice' or not - but this is more my fault than a flaw of the movie. The script was average, the music unremarkable, the acting fantastic in parts (Johnny Depp and Tim Burton), and the visual effects stunning. This film has been getting a lot of negative reviews but I don't think it deserves them at all. A well thought out movie, this is one I will definitely be watching time and time again.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 129
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