Alice in Wonderland

I have been wanting to check out the nearby IMAX theater for quite some time. Not because I have never been to an IMAX before but just that I have not been to this one before.

The movie was really amazing and worth being seen in a 3D IMAX if you have one near you. The story was nothing great. The end is totally predictable and so are quite a few scenes in between. But seeing some of the legendary characters such as the White Rabbit and the Cheshire cat (and the Mad Hatter, of course) with some top class animation made the movie special. The story is a take off from Lewis Carroll's original Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Alice is 19 years old and about to be asked for marriage by a Lord. Finding these sudden rush of events difficult to handle, Alice tries to bide some time by running away from the party thrown out for this occasion. She sees the White Rabbit and follows it to the burrow of the tree that is the entrance to the Wonderland.

Johnny Depp plays the Mad Hatter and Anne Hathway plays the White Queen. Johnny Depp really doesn't have to do anything different than what he did in the three editions of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. The swagger in his walk, the lilt in his talk and the animated gestures are quite familar to everyone and fits the role perfectly. Anne Hathway doesn't have much role to play and other than grinning wider than the Cheshire cat. And oh, there is the Cheshire Cat.

Easily, my favorite character of the movie which is saying something as it beats my default overwhelming favorite, Johnny Depp. The cat's character is quite...hmm...what is the right word for it...yes, magical. The fluid appearances and the disappearances, the way it saves the Mad Hatter and its mystical dialogues makes it the star of the movie. Only later did I realize that the voice for it was by Stephen Fry! The voice for Absolum, the dreamy yet wise old Blue Caterpillar, was by Alan Rickman (of Severus Snape fame).

It is a movie worth seeing if seen in an IMAX. Not sure about its impact on an ordinary 2D screen.