Far from frabjous.

Rating: 5/10 (5 April 2010)

Alice in Wonderland is another big budget exercise in eccentricity for eccentricity's sake from the team of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, an overindulgent and unnecessary retelling of the Lewis Carroll tale full of the director's trademark Gothic grandeur and featuring another kooky performance from the top billed star designed to further his appeal with disaffected loners and weirdos (don't be offended: I include myself in those categories).
Help is also on hand from pretty but wooden Mia Wasikowska as Alice, assorted well regarded thesps, a handful of cult names from the world of British TV, and of course, Burton's wife, Helena Bonham-Carter, whose weak impression of Queenie from Black Adder II is sadly the best performance of the whole film.
The clumsy narrative, which focuses heavily on elements from the nonsense poem The Jabberwocky, rarely engages the viewer in a satisfactory manner, achieving neither suspense, tension, excitement or, perhaps most notably, a sense of wonder; instead, the story plays second fiddle to the polished CGI visuals, which offer up the usual, tired, trippy imagery associated with the stories, but fail to either add anything new or make full use of the 3D technology (Wonderland looks positively flat in comparison to Cameron's alien world in Avatar).
Not quite as bad as Burton's re-imagining of Planet of the Apes (thank heavens), but still a long way from the genius on display in Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Beetlejuice and Mars Attacks (hey, I like it, so there!), Alice in Wonderland must have looked like the perfect project for all involved but the finished product is unlikely to have anyone grinning like the Cheshire cat.
Oh, and anyone who that thinks Crispin Glover needs digitally altering to look creepy is seriously misguided.