Movie Thoughts Bundle (2010) #2

In this collection of short reviews, we’ll explore the year 2010 where Tim Burton takes over Wonderland alongside his tried and true actor collaborations, we get another supernatural found footage horror movie (this time with a twist), and a glowing reminder of why Hollywood should probably hold off on trying to adapt any anime properties for a while.

1. Alice in Wonderland - 7/10

Without skipping a beat, from the moment Alice steps into Wonderland, Tim Burton’s unique and celebrated visual style completely explodes onscreen captivating in its use of colors and shapes. If you’re a huge fan of his particular sense of art direction then I think you’ll be delighted with many of the visual elements such as the scenery and character designs presented here. But aside from just the aesthetics, Alice in Wonderland at its source is also known for its crazy, bombastic, and unpredictable characters within the fantastical realm of its titular setting. This is something that I think the Burton adaptation also captured well especially once Johnny Depp’s iteration of the Mad Hatter appears. 

There’s an entire tea party scene surrounding his character amongst others that I believe perfectly encapsulates the absurdity of Wonderland in a highly entertaining collection of whacky interactions. Throughout the movie, there were a few characters that showed up that I was immediately intrigued, dazzled, or simply entertained by such as the aforementioned Mad Hatter, Thackery Earwicket, the Red Queen, and my favorite of them all in overall presentation, the Cheshire Cat. It's just nice to see such a wide assortment of characters that not only look interesting, but also genuinely have a unique sense of personality and liveliness. There are other movies in recent years that have tragically leaned more on designs than actual character building. 

That being said, as wonderfully mad and interesting to watch as all of these fantastical characters were, it's ashamed that the main character (Alice herself) was a bit of a bore. Now I know that the easiest thing to point out here would be to emphasize her as the "normal" character in Wonderland. However, that’s simply no excuse to allow such a wooden, one dimensional, and lifeless feeling character as our lead to follow throughout. This for me was the movie's biggest problem, but hey...at least everything surrounding her made for some fun distractions.

2. The Last Exorcism - 6/10

One of the strongest attributes of this movie is the way in which it takes the possession/exorcism sub genre of horror and subverts expectations with its central conflict. I love the fact that they present the audience with a supposedly possessed girl to which we'd immediately expect nothing but cliched supernatural scares surrounding her and decides to instead keep us in a state of constant speculation. This is largely due to a couple of cleverly inserted narrative tools such as the spotlighted victim possibly just needing psychiatric help through gradually revealed clues revolving around her mental health. There’s also the exorcist in question actually being a performer instead of your classic spiritual rescuer in need. The idea that he’s a swindler who financially benefits off of people's possession cases by utilizing deceptive special effects and acting was such a welcomed fresh angle. 

This goes hand in hand with his theory that all possession cases are actually just mental health issues that religious patients simply need a visual/audio presentation of the power of god to help them psychologically work out their "demon". It’s a really interesting take on your typical exorcism movie which is why I really admire the storytelling here for trying something a bit different. However there is a small downside to this approach. Because of all the scientific speculative ideas floating around most of the movie, I was a little uninterested at times. It's like watching an alien invasion movie where the first 45 mins. is centered on how people can easily confuse UFOs for something else. 

Now yes, everything does lead up to something climactic (a twist that I personally dug though a lot of people seem to have didn't), but the problem here is how long it takes to lead up to said moment. And, if I’m being honest, the big reveal itself could've been a bit more extensive. So really the main issue here is just the pacing of things happening. Using a food analogy, The Last Exorcism has a lot of great ingredients but the chef should’ve arranged and portioned everything out differently to create a more delectable dish.

3. The Last Airbender - 5/10

Now if you knew the huge critical and financial success of the Nickelodeon animated TV series, then you knew that this live action adaptation had enormous shoes to fill. As a fan of the TV series myself, I had pretty high expectations going in considering that the network seemed to be behind it but with a drop of caution considering the horrendous track record that cartoon adaptations have. Let's not forget that Dragonball Evolution exists which was one of many failed attempts to capture a particular anime or video game to a live action prism. Actually, for all of our sakes, let's indeed forget that it was ever a thing. So with such an uphill battle to climb and a big name team behind the production (M. Night Shyamalan's team), how does the movie live up to its name? 

Well, honestly I have more mixed opinions than anything. Getting the surface level stuff out of the way, there are certain things that I think this adaptation does exceptionally well while others severely lacked. One of the biggest anticipated aspects going in was the elemental bending powers utilized by the characters of this fantastical mythology and I must admit that there are cases where it looks amazing (the water bending especially). And on an even higher level of celebration worthy props, I thought the environments captured from the show including the various nations were pretty impressive to look at. I was pleased to know that they definitely put in much thought and details on these significant settings in the Avatar story. 

Unfortunately, that's basically where the praise ends as mostly everything else from the storytelling and characterizations were less than satisfying to say the least. There were many moments taken from the show that could've been just as dramatically impactful (if not more) but was immediately shattered due to laughably bad acting, forceful emotional content, rushed off dialogue, or simply overall lacking direction. Sadly, the only actor or character worth giving a pass is Dev Patel who brings everything that he possibly can to the story's layered villain...but it's simply not enough to save this movie.