Last Alice movie for now, lol, I promise – normal service will resume soon. Oh and I did watch this yesterday – well, early this morning – I just, y’know, had to sleep eventually Most of this was written while watching anyway.

I was worried at first here because I have an horrendously dubbed version of this perhaps the creepiest of all Alice adaptations. Luckily, it’s really more about the images and sound effects than anything, the dialogue being mostly either sparse or redundant (I’d say at least 50% of it consists of “said the rabbit” lol which in the end becomes very annoying) – which makes the very first line, “this is a film for children. But remember to shut your eyes, or else you won’t see anything!” deliciously ironic in addition to being a fine warning for those of a sensitive disposition (I’ll just say it was probably unwise of me to add this to the schedule at the last minute as the last thing I watch before bedtime at 4 in the morning, lol – I’m writing this while watching because I’m sure in the morning I’ll either plainly think I dreamt it or will have merged it inseparably with whatever nightmares I might have after a full afternoon and evening of Alice …)

In short, it’s “Alice: The WTF Edition” – the images are so arresting and nightmarish that you genuinely can’t take your eyes off them; the sound and pace so visceral that you genuinely fear for the actress in the lead, for example when the mouse (actually it’s more like a rat here) in the pool of tears sets up camp on her head thinking it’s an island, hammering sticks into her scalp, her only protest “That’s too far!” coming as he tries to set fire to her hair. Perhaps surprisingly given the wacky means by which it’s done, the movie actually stays pretty close to the story – which makes it even more amazing that it feels so unpredictable compared to other adaptations. Each time, for example, that Alice breaks into one of the tiny desks that litter her journey, I found myself seriously not knowing what might come out of it or where she might be taken next or what might happen to her. It somehow lulls you into a state of anxiety, something that’s perfectly understandable when it comes to Alice but that none of the other adaptations really do so well as this one.

At 90 minutes the jerky motion and incessant sound effects certainly start to grate towards the end – I’ve a feeling this might be something that’s not so bad in the original Czech language version with the truly horrible dubbing girl’s voice taken away … in any case, it’s still another great interpretation of the story that’s worth watching if you like seeing things you’ve never seen before.

Of course, as the Disney version, this is the best-known, most-loved, most stylised and standardised of all the adaptations. As far as I know, it was likely my only source of the story for a good chunk of my life, and by that I mean, I don’t even remember reading or being read the book (_sniff_ lol): I only realised this past week reading the first of the books that parts of this and the other adaptations, like Tweedledum and Tweedledee for example, were in fact taken from “Through the Looking Glass” which I’ve yet to read. In this version, in fact, they even pull in a couple of elements from Carroll’s “Jabberwocky”, as well as throwing in some genuinely clever characters and lines of their own (“You gave me quite a turn!” “She’s stark raven mad!”) ... all in 70 minutes. I still prefer the Fiona Fullerton version by a smidgen, and who knows what Tim Burton’s going to deliver, but this is one of Disney’s best, it’s eyepoppingly colourful particularly when you consider the year it was made, and the character designs etc certainly stick in one’s memory.

I remember being surprised by this the last time I watched it (alas, another review seems to have vanished), and my heart leapt as it hit its stride this time around when I remembered Jim Hawkins is voiced by Joseph Gordon-Levitt I guess I wasn’t such a fan of his the last time I watched. He along with Emma Thompson, David Hyde Pierce, Laurie Metcalf and Martin Short among others make for a great voice cast for a movie populated by more speaking characters, I noticed this time around, than you can shake a stick at.

It’s the “hand-drawn” (mostly) Disney animation feature I forget about most often, and that’s a shame, because considering how late in the game it came for them, it’s actually probably among my favourites. Going back to Gordon-Levitt, it’s right they should have someone so cool voicing this hero – I think I’ve said a number of times how badly the Disney males have sucked (and not just in my general, admittedly sucky, “most males do anyway,” way, lol) ... but second only perhaps to Tarzan, Jim Hawkins is really startlingly endearing. I love when the one song moment here comes seemingly out of nowhere triggering a flashback to Jim’s father leaving, and you just get all of his hangups thrown at you like a slap to the face, so when you see him slump against John Silver’s chest and start crying, you’re just completely with him.

To counter all of this is the feisty back and forth humour between Thompson’s sexy feline captain and Hyde Pierce as, well, as always something approximating Niles from Frasier never fails, lol. There’s the cute Morph, Michael Wincott’s spider thing, Martin Short’s B.E.N., and some gorgeous visuals. It’s a surprisingly ambitious project, one that really in the midst of Home on the Range, Brother Bear, etc, makes me once again wish they’d kept on with the handdrawn* – I noticed looking at the big list of the Animated Classics that it came out the same year as Lilo & Stitch, which clearly overshadows it … perhaps that’s why it’s so forgettable. Like I said, it’s a shame, ‘cos it’s one that makes me smile and laugh and cry everytime I see it.

* I wrote most of this review a couple of days ago now – since then I’ve been reading all kinds of amazing things about what Glen Keane is doing with Rapunzel ... there may be hope … it’s not hand drawn, but damn, finally somebody realises what computers can do …

“I’m only 6.”
“You won’t always be.”

I’ve waited far too long to see this one and the longer I waited and the more excited I got about it, the more scared I got of how I’d react to it. That signpost quote above as to where the movie might be going told me that this dread wasn’t going to let up until the very closing scene. That it started up so much like the glorious Elf (which I’m amazed doesn’t dominate most reviews, btw, so glaring are the similarities) gave me hope … but egh, let’s just start with that beginning animation, shall we?

At one point Patrick Dempsey (as a quite typically joyless New York single father man man) tells Amy Adams (as the angerless Disney Princess Giselle recently transformed into a human in a very rushed set-up), “It’s like you escaped from a Hallmark card or something,” – and that’s what the animation at the start here resembles more to me than the classic Disney style one would think they were trying to emulate.

It amazes me that so many people have felt nostalgia for the classics watching these early scenes; have they even watched them since they were 6? It’s like the years of producing second-rate sequels (don’t get me wrong, some of them are good as I’ve said time and again; but notice how few of them feature human characters …) have blurred the old style out of the animators’ muscle memory. The animated opening feels more like another studio, like Fox or Dreamworks, doing a very corny and tired mickey-take of everything everybody always thinks is “wrong” with the old Disney animations. If this is what Disney animations would look like were they still producing theatrical hand-drawn pictures, then I’m honestly kinda glad they stopped.

Though I’ve always jokingly said, “It’s all Disney’s fault,” when it comes to the subject of depression and woes of the world etc; I did it only last week, in fact, watching a show about self-help books – like, Disney told a whole generation, or two, or even three, that “dreams came true if you follow your heart” and, yes, in most cases that’s just not true and such lofty ideals can lead to crushing disappointment. Don’t even get me started on, “what if the dreams your heart contains don’t fit society’s pre-ordained plan for your demographic?”

But more recently, I’ve gotta say, I’ve started to believe even more that the failing is really just in people at large following the same rules and making the same mistakes that society jokingly excuses as the unavoidable norm. That old thing that we’re beautiful and perfect little children and then we grow up and that there’s no reclaiming innocence once it’s lost so you might as well just accept misery as a fact of life. I no longer buy it – humans are much more capable than that if – like a better movie Bridge To Terabithia, which I watched for the umpteenth time just last night, says – they just keep their mind open. The moment where Giselle fails to sing back to the Prince here made me feel like I was dying inside because the movie was suddenly taking just exactly that horrible turn I’d feared from the start. It’s amazing to me that a movie like this takes such a stance while even a movie like The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is the one praising the power of the imagination to overpower every sad restraint the world can impose on us.

Enchanted certainly has its moments. I can’t deny Amy Adams’ wondrousness, even though it all gets mostly stripped away in the end; like my mum gasped, “she looks so … ordinary ...”; Giselle seems “happy enough” as do Morgan and Robert in the end. But, and I apologise to those who will surely think I’m overthinking this and desperately looking for a problem, for me it’s all just too real; dare I say even, too “mature”. Do we really want Disney suggesting that “happy enough might be as good as it gets” as someone said in that show I mentioned earlier? Like the opening animation, it all just feels horribly revisionist (not “delightfully” so as one review I’ve read put it): like Disney is “correcting” things that other people told it were mistakes in its past work. Nothing needed revising here; the girl saving the day isn’t a challenging surprise anymore in 2007 … at least, it shouldn’t be. Disney really shouldn’t be so ashamed of their dreaming in the past, and I’m worried they may have ruined their whole catalogue of classics for the current generation of children exposed to this cynical ribbing of the formula.

I’m sure others will think the exact opposite; that this approach is probably a good thing; and I guess they’re probably right, since in the world as it is, it probably, unfortunately, is the most lucrative option. Me, I’ll follow Idina Menzel and the Prince back down the manhole anyday, thanks kindly. Honestly I wish the movie could’ve convinced me that “getting real” was a thing worth doing … but personally I wanted to be more, I don’t know, enchanted? Was that a weird thing to expect given the title? Now I have to wait 20 years for a Girl on the Bridge type sequel. Let’s call it “Disenchanted” ... wherein Idina and the Prince come back from Andalasia just in time to rescue poor Morgan about to jump off the Empire State such woe is future modern life. Can we please start telling our children they can change this nightmare instead of just training them to put up with it? A credit card as fairy godmother? It’s a cute gag, and I laughed, so great is Rachel Covey’s delivery … but thinking back on it, I find it deeply troubling.

If someone had told me this had been “Josie and the Pussycatzed up” on its way to the screen, I might’ve got overly excited. I was pretty excited to see a Chipmunks movie anyway, but slipping in a little music industry satire too? How could it fail?

Well, it turns out the brilliant Josie did just about all you can do with that without needing a repeat, and when it comes to the Chipmunks … I’d really prefer it were kept a little more cute and traditional.

I think it was of this Mark Kermode said, “it’s not quite Garfield ...” while I’d say, that’s just about exactly the level it’s at. It has its moments, at 90 minutes it’s not worth complaining about, but really, I’d sooner get some nostalgia and watch the old TV show and get the satire from Josie. That said, if a sequel means Chipettes? Well I’m so there, lol One thing’s for sure, the look of the chipmunks is the least of this movie’s problems … I know a lot of people nearly died when the teaser poster was unveiled but I really don’t see the problem … Theodore in particular is adorable, I want one! And they each have distinctive personalities to the point where you know which is which long before they don the colour-coded sweaters. The point where childhoods really start being raped is with the too-modern songs the guys are singing – but even that complaint gets fairly shot down by the closing credits showing all the albums released under the Chipmunks name over the decades … they have always changed with the times. There’s really nothing wrong with this movie, it’s really just a matter of how well you take it.

One thing I hadn’t bargained on was the major Christmas theme running through the movie. Of course, the Chipmunks’ Christmas album is one of their most popular recordings so I should’ve known. Still, at least I slipped it in before January was out … and it gives me a good excuse to watch it again since at that time of year I’ll pretty much watch anything

I figured this would all hinge on how well I took the moment of the bee talking to the human. So I was surprised by how well I took that scene. Though the minor giggles continue to come throughout, it gets very stupid, very annoying, very fast – the kind of movie where I could see the stars dropping off the rating with almost precision timing. The celebrity name checks are particularly half-assed (“I can’t fly a plane!” “Isn’t John Travolta a pilot? How hard can it be?!” ugh, and I thought Scary Movie 4 was simple) I was a little weirded out by the message too, in a similar way I overthunk The Incredibles – like, this movie seems to be just saying “get in your place and do what you’re supposed to do.” I’m overly aware of both sides of everything, hence the domain I live at, so it pains me that I can see there’s a point in this message somewhere … but, ugh, really, leave it alone, especially in a kids’ movie. They really deserve better, and I’m even more glad now that this wasn’t nominated for an Oscar than I was before I saw it.

It was my intention to see this on the 3D IMAX somewhere around my birthday (actually, somewhere around Christmas, but things got in the way) but I’d ultimately left it too late and won’t be making it to any of the remaining showings they have. I’d read in many places that it mightn’t even be worth seeing in any lesser format; luckily, though of course like anything it’ll be better the larger and more luxurious the screen you see it on, I’m glad to say that the visuals are stunning enough to transcend the screen size and number of dimensions they’re viewed in … which is as it should be. I’ve always said a decent movie really shouldn’t have to rely on a specifically grand presentation to make an impact.

I’ve also said, quite recently in fact, that a movie should always try to be a lot more than just pretty pictures, and my greatest fear with this one was that there simply wouldn’t be any real emotional core, like, say, even The Polar Express had at its close – in other words, that it’d ultimately be just another 300.

Though I can’t not give the movie points for the visuals – they’ve really come a long way since The Polar Express – I’m more excited about the two key moments here that I think show Robert Zemeckis still has it in him to convey rich cinematic moments … the moment that Beowulf makes the decision he makes regarding the dragon (hard to get into details without spoiling it – just everything around that key moment about the heart is perfect); and the look between and Wiglaf and Grendel’s mother at the end … just between the two moments, this is more than worth watching for something more than great technowizardry. But it’s pretty much worth it for that, too, even on the small screen. It’s pretty surprisingly sexy, too, not to mention violent.

“What’s the secret of time travel doing on Fry’s ass?!”
“It was bound to be somewhere ...”

Sometimes it’s surprising how pleased you find yourself to see something again, and this was certainly such a case for me. This straight-to-DVD feature is absolutely a fans-only affair, right from the opening almost entirely dedicated to gags on the whole “cancelled” situation. I don’t think there was a second here I wasn’t either laughing out loud or just beaming with some kind of nostalgia.

There really isn’t a lot for me to say that won’t be either preaching to those who are already gonna buy it anyway or plain make me sound dumb since I’m not a massive Futurama fan to begin with. It still bears the hallmarks and flaws of other animated TV-to-movie switchers, though it mostly avoids feeling too much like 4 episodes strung together and certainly has more fun with the time travel thing than 2005’s Family Guy movie. I laughed a lot more than expected (“I thought you were happy! Your tail was wagging!”), and honestly, the twist at the end is one of the most surprisingly moving things I’ve seen in a movie this year – in the context of Futurama, it’s up there with the last episode, that stuff with the flute, I forget the details except how beautiful I found it at the time. It really got me so much I was almost inclined to give this 5 stars. It’s definitely close for me. There’s even a massive festive element in the second half – making me kinda wish I’d saved this for my Christmas viewing, hehe … but maybe I’ll watch it again that soon anyway