Futterwack

There's a unforgivable moment of unconcerned thinking for one's reputation towards the end of Disney's live-action 3D wow-factor movie Alice In Wonderland which opens tomorrow from director Tim Burton. It is, and you'll agree with me when you've seen the movie... the futterwack scene. A futter-what, you ask? Well (if I'm remembering right), the futtercrap wack is a kind of crazy dance that means so much to Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter but he has been unable to perform it for some time because he has become depressed under the Red Queen's ruling. He is one bad day short of suicidal. It makes you wish that you had never bought your cinema ticket. For real. Or at least that you had been watching a totally different film, or playing bingo on tv or something. It is out of this world, and not in a good way! The Hatter dance is hinted at, and slowly built up and up during most of Depp's accent changing scenes (seriously, he goes through English, Scottish and Welsh in one conversation) and when we finally get to see it - the big reveal we have been building towards when he regains his lostmojo and performs it is a Michael Jackson moonwalk played to a strange kind of techno beat. It is, quite frankly, the stupidest thing I have ever seen in a Tim Burton/Johnny Depp collaboration. It even beats the the oompa loompa clone dance numbers in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and that's saying something. The Burton of 1989, of 1994, of 1999 would never have succumbed to such a moment of low-grade stupidity to elicit a cheer from emo-Depp fans. Alice in Wonderland is currently scoring 67% on Rotten Tomatoes, a lot of critics seem to be forgiving the movie it's structural problems because of the production design, which I have admitted is of good quality. Those with a passion for seeing good movies on screen though, the likes of Drew McWeeny, Todd McCarthy, Marshall Fine and me - have all denounced it as the end of Burton.