What Disney studios have done is completely remade their take of “Alice in Wonderland” except they’ve given director Tim Burton carte blanche to completely re-think the lore and Burtonize it to the fullest extent. These days though, Burtonize is akin to doing basically nothing to completely re-work a formula. “Alice in Wonderland” is Tim Burton basically just riding on his name recognition even more by offering up a re-telling of “Alice in Wonderland” except now with a darker tone, surreal imagery, the usual suspects in terms of supporting characters, and a cliché story about a person destined to save a land and become a warrior who will save them from evil.
I grew up with two kinds of movie fans. One (my mom) was a hardcore horror buff, and the other was an unabashed action buff (my dad), so for most of my life before I sought out various genres, all I sat and watched were sleazy action flicks and gory horror films. “The Expendables,” while not a perfect movie, is a call back to the classic action films of the seventies and eighties when men were buff, grizzled, hairy and fired off huge guns while also getting the woman in the end, it’s a traditional action film that is also director Sylvester Stallone’s own version of “The Wild Bunch” about old cowboys who have one last stand to reclaim their dignity and self-respect. They do the missions because they feel as if they have to, and they don’t take in to caution their own well beings.
One of the elements of animation that Pixar has always excelled at that will garner them a bonafide place in history books and text books about storytelling and animation (whether you’re sick of seeing them on TV and awards shows or not) is the fact that the animators and writers in the studio are able to understand that animation is just as much a narrative experience as it is about sight and sound. As well you can also surround an animated film around sight and sound and little dialogue without overloading us with explosions and colors.