An insult to Lewis Carroll's vision

Rating: 4/10 (23 September 2011)

I almost don't want to review this movie, because I love Tim Burton and I hope he'll realize the error of this project and be back on track for the next one, the way he did after the horrendous Planet of the Apes (and no, Alice isn't quite as bad as that one, but that's not saying much). Having been accustomed to being disappointed by literary film adaptations, I came in with low expectations, and still I was disappointed.
What bothered me most as a Lewis Carroll fan was not the changes made to the storyline as much as the changes made to the spirit and the atmosphere. Amy Biancolli phrased it perfectly - "Its single biggest failing... is the fact that it makes sense". The film betrays everything that was magical and fascinating about Carroll's nonsense and whim, turning it into a clone of Narnia or the Neverending Story. The Mad Hatter -- a tortured soul turned to madness by evil and horror? Seriously? That's almost as bad as turning the poem of the Jabberwocky - a masterpiece of language and nonsense - into an ominous prophecy. 'Underland'? Please. The characters are Carroll's, but Carroll's vision is gone.
Not that the film doesn't have a few things going for it. The casting is near perfect, and it could have made a solid Alice film. Helena Bonham Carter, Matt Lucas, Stephen Fry, Alan Rickman, Michael Sheen, Crispin Glover, Timothy Spall - they all do a commendable job. Johnny Depp's Hatter was awful but it wasn't his fault - he was merely doing his Willy Wonka over again. Mia Wasikowska does a good job, even if any connection to Carroll's Alice is purely coincidental. Costume design and art direction are as good as you'd expect from Burton, but hardly groundbreaking.
As for the 3D, it does very little to help the film along. I do hope that Burton has learned his lesson - that 3D is no replacement for filmmaking (although sadly, seeing how successful Alice was, it may be that he won't learn that lesson). If Avatar hasn't driven the message home, then Alice should be a wake-up call to anyone of the James Cameron school of thought, who will realize that 3D cinema is a gimmick, a fun one, but definitely not the next stage in filmmaking, at least not until somebody did anything worthwhile with it, and so far I haven't seen that happen.