Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland. Let's see, I liked the books as a child, loved the Jabberwocky poem and memorized it voluntarily, and I happen to love Helena Bonham- Carter and Johnny Depp. So what could go wrong?

Oooooh - it goes wrong. It goes terribly, terribly wrong. :P

I had to see this alone. Tried to talk others into going for a couple of weeks and no one would go. My daughter saw it with a friend up in Denver and hated it but even with her thumbs way down I thought "Surely not... how bad could it be??" It be. It be terribly bad.

Where to start... the scenes are so staged and unengaging that you're always aware you're watching a play. The dialogue is bad, the costumes are bad, the acting is bad, the lighting is bad.... it just somehow falls totally flat. Johnny Depp looks way off his game here, as if he knows how bad this is and he's stuck playing along. His performance is psychotic rather than mad as the Hatter, and his demeanor and accent and way of speaking and entire self changes from scene to scene, which is very odd.

Anne Hathaway ('Devil Wears Prada') plays the White Queen and here she's doing a very bad impersonation of Glenda, the Good Witch from the Wizard of Oz. A very BAD impersonation. It was uncomfortable to watch.

I considered leaving 8 - count then EIGHT - different times. But I fought the desire. We always stay to the end, soldier - if we pay for it we see it! Even so I gathered up my things time and time again thinking of all the wonderful things I could be doing rather than sitting through this dreck. The only thing that was a glimmer of hope in this thing was the wonderful Helena Bonham-Carter. I've just loved her ever since I saw her in 'Fight Club' so many years ago. She's a very talented actress and has a hilarious look in this movie as the Red Queen (with a ginormous head). Her lines are the best of the bunch and she delivers the best performance possible considering what she's in the midst of. She alone kept me in my seat.

The movie as a whole gets a '1'. Without Helana Bonham-Carter it would have gotten a zero.

Pueblo Tinseltown was the place - hot fresh popcorn and I ate way too much since there was no one to share it with!