Loud violence, nice imagery, but where's the WONDER?

Rating: 4/10 (19 March 2010)

This film was high on being a theme ride. Okay, it made a lot of money and in business, that is the bottom line, but the truth remains, it was too scared to go into "mood" in fear of losing it's audience. Too afraid to be wonderous and quiet for too long. Instead, it caved more on the Indiana Jones theme park ride format. ALICE AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM rather than Alice in Wonderland. The acting is top notch by everyone. The make up for Johnny Depp made him more scary than sympathetic and yet his character is suppose to evoke the same kind of sympathy that Ray Bolger did in The Wizard of Oz? It didn't happen. If the film wasn't so mean loud and violent, I would say his interpretation would have had a better chance. Not since Anna Quayle as the child hating baroness in CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG was there as good a queen as Helena Bonham Carter. Her queen in mesmerizing. You can't keep your eyes off her. One gets the sense that Tim Burton can't get past his dark childhood or whatever it was back there that makes his movies depressing. His wonderland is expensive and full of Transformer type atmosphere at ear splitting levels. Some beautiful imagery, but not enough imagination to make it the wondrous magical adventure it should have been.