Nightmare On Elm Street

3 1/2 out of 5 Stars



In 1984 Wes Craven brought us the original nightmare in Johnny Depp's first major film role about a child murderer named Freddy Krueger who kills people in their dreams and when they do they die in reality ... and of course the parents of the tortured teens years before hunted him down and burned him alive. Now in 2010 Samuel Bayer directs a much more visually intense remake that takes Wes Craven's idea to new levels and adds in more back story to Freddy. The result is a visually striking recreation of the original hailed slasher film.

This remake is definitely still a slasher and very much so in the vain of modern day films of the genre. But at the same time there is a story behind the villain, no matter how disturbing it may be, and as much as I enjoyed the original there really was no story. For the time the original nightmare holds up and if I would have seen it when I was a kid I was have been scared too. But when I watch it now I feel less like being frightened and more inclined to try and reason with Freddy. The acting in the original is often mediocre to awful and Krueger feels more like a clown than a sinister killer. The only aspect of the original that would make it more frightening is the slightly more mysterious aspect to this character.

But in the remake we are given more story. We know where Freddy came from and what he did by the end. Why the characters are being hunted down makes sense. The supernatural aspect of the dreams begin to make sense to what happens to them in reality. The acting is also a heck of a lot better than the original and Jackie Earle Haley definitely pulls off Freddy quite well. They took Freddy and turned off any sense of him being a clown, still kept his dark wit and molded Freddy back into a cold and sadistic killer. The only real big flaw (other than explaining how Freddy got his claw hand) was not following the lead character of Nancy closely enough at the beginning of the film. But for the most part the new nightmare is the old nightmare with some slight tweaks. The deaths are just about the same and the basic plot is followed to so closely it's almost like when Zack Snyder makes a film based on a graphic novel. Some people may not enjoy the back story, but I personally was grateful to actually have a story.

Alice In Wonderland

4 out of 5 Stars



We all know the stories of Alice's Adventures In Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass penned by Charles Dodgeson using the pseudonym of Lewis Caroll. Countless films have been produced based on his books and most have failed. These books have always been considered classics yet at the same time they are two novels that were really just a series of random happenstances which created stories that were virtually unfilmable when it came to story. Of course these stories also have never been bright and joyous but rather dark and creepy. They really are kids books in an adult world.

In Burton's wonderland, Alice is now 19 and stumbles down the rabbit hole once again after being faced with a marriage proposal from a snobbish lord. She returns to Underland, which she originally called Wonderland as a young girl, and encounters many of the same characters and events as she did on her first journey as well as much more.

As I have previously stated, the books really are a journey of random events and to this the story of Burton's wonderland, written by Linda Woolverton, takes a coherency that was heavily lacking in the novels. The story successfully combines both books in one story that captures the heart and imagination of this surreal world. Whereas the original story was a surreal dream with random and passing characters, this Alice is a coherent story with a through plot of in depth characters.

The characters all have amazing depth. There seems to be a backstory to each one, from the hatter, to the red queen, to the hound we can feel for the characters and see there is more to them than just a purpose for what could very well be Alice's crazy imagination. These characters all fit very well into the newly imagined wonderland and the vibrant visual style that is brought to the screen in this adaptation.

It is a film that relies heavily on CGI for it's created world but is also one of the few where it fits well. For such a surreal world and oddly imagined story, Burton really is one of the few directors who is fit to direct such a project. Wonderland becomes more than just a dream in this world, it is a surreal world where most anything can happen and by the time it comes to return to the real world we sort of want to stay with these mad characters. There is a sort of charm to them despite their slight creepiness.

But mostly this film is a coming of age story. When Alice is faced with a big decision she doesn't know what to do, so she flees, and than in wonderland she discovers herself. It's a story of transitioning from the young life to the adult life, one of the hardest transitions, and even though we are tempted to stay in the surreal world we must come back and face reality.

Burton's wonderland is a fresh and original adaptation as you've never seen it before that contains the heart of both novels combined.