Alice In One Eye Land

I put my modelling wages to good use on Saturday and took my lovely wife to the local cinema to see Alice In Wonderland (3D).We’re both Tim Burton / Johnny Depp fans so it was a foregone conclusion that we’d both enjoy the film and it didn’t disappoint. Sumptuous, rich, absurd, kooky. Exactly what is says on the tin. Burton was smart enough not to retell the original story but to craft an addendum to it that threw in the Jabberwocky for good measure. Helena Bonham-Carter was excellent as the Red Queen – I found myself thirsting to see her far more than Depp’s Mad Hatter (superb though his performance was).

Mia Wasikowska won me over as Alice. At first I just wasn’t sure. She wasn’t quite right but then – mirroring the film’s narrative (could be deliberate I suppose – doh!) she suddenly became Alice utterly and completely and I was convinced.

She also looked rather stunning in a suit of armour. Very, very arresting in fact. Yum. Eye candy that clanks. I think I could get into metal in a big way. In fact I’ve just bought myself a blowtorch and some goggles on eBay... but enough about my nefarious metalworking...

...what was special about the evening was that this was my first experience of 3D cinema (as we’d missed the boat with Avatar). With proper 3D glasses and everything.

I have to say it brought out the big kid in me. I was more juvenile than usual (which is saying something). I couldn’t resist putting them on before the film had started and looking around in wonder, muttering loudly, “Wow! They really work!”

What really gave Karen and I the giggles though was a fellow cinema patron who squeezed past us with his partner to get to their seats before the film started. As he shuffled by we heard him bemoan the fact that he probably wouldn’t be able to see the film properly as he could only see out of one eye...

You think? I realize that 3D glasses have come a long way from the red and green lensed cardboard contraptions of the eighties but I’m pretty sure the modern ones still need the viewer to have binocular vision in order for the 3D effect to work properly. Otherwise all you’re going to see is very fuzzy moving images which induce nausea rather than wonder.

And then very bizarrely there were numerous instances in the film where various characters had eyes plucked out... Call me cruel, call me callous, but it had me giggling even more. Old Mr One-eye must have thought that Mr Burton was having a real go at him. A personal attack of visionary proportions (if only he could have seen it properly).

Poor man.

But really, what kind of idiot goes to see a 3D film with only one working eyeball?