Review
WONDERLAND
Starring Val Kilmer, Lisa Kudrow and Kate Bosworth
Directed by James Cox
Opens Friday, October 24
Check listings
Watching Wonderland is like listening to a seven-year-old child talk about what happened at school – you get caught up in the child’s enthusiasm, but at the end of the conversation, did the kid really say anything you didn’t already know? No – and the same goes for this movie.
The Wonderland murders took place on July 1, 1981 in Hollywood, California. The only reason anyone batted an eye at this grisly crime was because famed porn legend John Holmes was implicated.
Actually, truth be told Wonderland almost never mentions the fact that Holmes is a porn star (these murders took place two years after his last film), so really, Wonderland is about a bunch of low-lifes who rip off a night club kingpin and get killed in retribution. The hook here is that it’s told from the differing perspectives of all the main characters, in the style of Akira Kurosawa’s classic Rashomon. Wait we’ve already seen that a million times. So, why bother?
For one thing, the acting is top notch. Val Kilmer’s performance as the pathetic, unlikable Holmes is frighteningly good. It’s really hard to make a character so devoid of morals be so watchable and (almost) likable. As for the supporting cast, Lisa Kudrow as Sharon Holmes is terrific. You can actually feel the history between them. Every time Johnny tries to weasel his way around the truth, Sharon is there to kick his ass (I don’t know about you guys, but seeing Kilmer get his ass kicked just makes me smile, and seeing him get it kicked by Kudrow makes me squeal with glee).
Watching great actors go toe to toe with one another is always fun, and Wonderland is full of great matches – Ted Lavine versus Dylan McDermott, Tim Blake Nelson and Josh Lucas versus Eric Bogosian, and Kate Bosworth versus Carrie Fisher. Fine work from the entire cast.
The problem with Wonderland is that even though director James Cox (must… bite… tongue…) made an energetic, visually exciting film, I’m not convinced he told the story properly. Wonderland is told subjectively by two people who were directly involved with the Wonderland murders. The extent of their involvement depends on which story you believe.
Had James Cox just left the decision up to the viewer, I would’ve loved this movie. But he didn’t. He lured us into this world of "nothing is what it seems" only to tell us what really happened. Then he had the audacity to give us title cards at the end of the film, completely demystifying the last two hours of exposition.
Still, Wonderland has a lot of spunk and I could really tell that the director embraced his inner seven-year-old to enthusiastically tell this story. It’s too bad he didn’t have a little more focus. |
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