Red Queen versus White Queen (Or Why I Hesitate When a Movie is Billed as 3D)

In the first place, I feel the additional weight of the newfangled eyewear when I put them on. I’ve worn eyeglasses since I was 10 and only take them off when I shower or when I sleep. I need them to see clearly, and thank goodness for lightweight, narrow-framed glasses for being in vogue. Imagine if Jackie O glasses (without the dark tint) were still around, and you have to put on the 3D thing.

But Johnny Depp—I’d walk a mile for him. I’ve admired the characters he has portrayed since he became a recognizable name, characters on the dark end of the psychological spectrum, always edgy, the push-the-envelope-further type of actor. From “Edward Scissorhands” to “Benny and Joon” to the “Pirates of the Caribbean” trilogy—you feel you’re paying to watch him have a romp and a jolly good time.

As the green-eyed (literally, not as in envy) Mad Hatter in this year’s 3D spectacular “Alice in Wonderland,” we now understand why he’s filmmaker Tim Burton’s all-time muse, not his partner Helena Bonham Carter who was equally effective as the red-headed, swell-headed Red Queen. His face, even under tons of make-up, vacillates between tenderness and righteous anger. His being mad is both guise and reality, a way of subverting the authoritarian order of the conjugal dictatorship of the Red Queen and her paramour, the one-eyed Knave of Hearts .

You know who’s out of place in this wonderland, no matter how accommodating the place is for all the underworld weirdos? Anne Hathaway as the White Queen. Even my eldest daughter Kimi says so:“Nanay, pinagpilitan niya lang sarili dyan sa movie. She wasn’t in the short list in the cast.” This is the daughter who has followed Hathaway from “Princess Diaries” to “Brokeback Mountain” to “The Devil Wears Prada.” Now , if it had been Amy Adams who was wonderful in “Enchanted.” Hathaway’s thick, bushy eyebrows were distracting to say the least.

I don’t mind wearing those 3D goggles again just to be able to witness the fight scene between Jabberwocky and the sword-wielding Alice played by Mia Wasikowska who looks like a young, pale Gwyneth Paltrow.

Oh frabjous Thursday.

Photo shows a pair of xpand Active 3D Glasses provided by Shangri-la Plaza.