Disapppointing, Considering The Hype

Rating: 5/10 (10 June 2010)

Wow, now I understand all the negative reviews here at IMDb. I'd have to agree with most of the folks here; this film was very disappointing.
Yeah, being a Tim Burton film I knew I'd see some wild visuals with crazy characters but even those were nothing that special and grew tiresome after an hour.
In fact, the whole film started to drag after an hour, probably because the story was so poor. I found it uninvolved; I just didn't care about these characters, and I should have. Burton took Lewis Carroll's famous story and made it too dark and unlikable. It's not the first time he's done something like this.
It might also be time for Johnny Depp to take off all the eyeliner and assorted makeup and begin to do more mature roles. Yeah, I know: craziness is part of his "schtick," but the guy just turned 47 years of age. As he did in "Finding Neverland" and "Public Enemies," he can play characters that don't always look "Willy Wonka"-like bizarre. The same goes for Burton, who seems to have gone one-too-many of the same thing. His writing and directing in this one lacks the outrageous fun he had in so many of his earlier efforts. Being over 50 doesn't mean his brain stops, but he needs to re-focus his creativity.
This film offers no heart-and-soul and is sorely lacking in the humor department. Burton's comedic films (i.e. Big Fish, Ed Wood, Bettlejuice, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory") seem to fare much better. Why make this famous children's story so dark? I'm sorry but I was equally unimpressed with "Alice," played by newcomer Mia Wasikowska. After seeing her in "Defiance" and "Amelia," I expected more out of her in this one. With a lot more feeling, she could have half-salvaged this film.
All-in-all, the film is slightly less than "fair" and much less when you consider the hype and the expectations most of us had.