This could have been something special...

Rating: Null/10 (15 March 2010)

When I heared Tim Burton was doing a Alice in Wonderland film I was super excited. I read all the news about it and followed along as the film was made. When I saw the trailer I was even more excited as the trailer made the film seem epic and great. After I walked out of the theater last night I was less then impressed.
I love Tim Burton movies, edward scissorhands, sleepy hollow, etc are some of my favourite movies and Tim Burton creates incredible worlds and visuals. Alice had the incredible world and visuals but the story and some of the acting just fell short.
The writing in this film was sub par IMO. I thought the pacing was a bit too fast and never really got the viewer into the story. I never really cared about Alice or the other characters. This movie seemed to be all about the visuals, and while they are great that doesn't make a movie great. Avatar had amazing visuals and a not so original story but at least the story was told in a way that you care about the man character and there was somewhat of a story to support the visuals.
I wasn't even that impressed with Johnny Depp in this movie, it seemed like a paycheck movie for him. The actress who played Alice was good but she never seemed curious about any of the creatures and her attitude that this was just a dream got really old, but i guess thats Burton's fault not Mia's.
I think this could have been a really special movie, I think Burton should have thrown aside the whole 3d, cgi deal and made a dark, beautiful smaller budget movie with incredible actors(still have Depp as the hatter) and made something he could be proud of and not just a 3D spectacle riding on Avatar's insanely huge coat tails. I hope this is not the kind of movies we will see from Burton in the future. I hope he finds his roots somehow.