Let Lewis Carol do his OWN writing, please

Rating: 4/10 (13 March 2010)

Here's a word I never thought I would use in describing a Tim Burton film - boring.
Yes, dull, tedious, monotonous and just plain boring. These are words NO ONE should have to use in relating a film based upon one of the true classics of English literature, "Alice In Wonderland," but Burton, who has directed some of my favorite films ("Batman," "Beelejuice," "Sleepy Hollow," "Ed Wood," "Edward Scissorhands," etc.) somehow manages the impossible.
And it's not to say that Burton does not attempt to give the movie some stunning visual presence, he does, thanks to cinematographer Dariusz Wolski ("Pirates of the Caribbean," "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street"). Scene after scene are wonderful to behold (this is especially true in 3-D).
The problem is that the director tries to cram too much into the film's brief 110-minute running time, not only incorporating "Alice," but Carol's semi-epic poem, "The Jabberwocky," as well as elements of "Howard's End," "Prince of Narnia" and "Joan Of Arc." It's all far too much for the children the movie is aimed at, as well as the adults who bring them.
It begins bad when Alice is now a teenager (played by a most emotionless and lethargic Australian actress, Mia Wasikowska, "Amelia"), who keeps having nightmares about her first trip to Wonderland as a child.
Hey, here's a hint, film THAT version instead! Alice as a feisty pre-feminist teenybopper is nowhere NEAR as interesting as the tale of the little girl lost in a world of (possibly her own) imagination. Having her as a belligerent teen ruined much of this film for me.
Anyway, Alice is now being courted by prissy Lord Ascot (Tim Pigott-Smith) and intimidated by his stuffy upper-crust mother, Geraldine James. There's a dead-end plot of her catching her sister's husband cheating on her and then she runs away and falls into the famed rabbit hole. Thankfully, Burton did not spend too much time on this unnecessary exposition.
Once inside the hole, the fantasy and visual delights of the picture can truly be appreciated. Of course, Alice drinks the potion that makes her small and then eats the cake that causes her to grow to enormous heights (somewhat). She then meets some of the more recognizable characters from the book, the March Hare (voiced by Paul Whitehouse), Dormouse (Barbara Windsor), Dodo Bird (Michael Gough), Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry), the terrible CGI'd Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb (Matt Lucas) and the Blue Caterpillar (Alan Rickman).
Soon, she is introduced (or RE-introduced, if you will) to the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp in his 100th Tim Burton film, doing his best Jack Sparrow meets Willy Wonka impersonation). The two don't exactly hit it off, but when the evil Queen of Hearts (Helena Bonham Carter) sends her playing card soldiers to look for her, they become necessary allies.
There is also a creepy sexual tension between Alice and the Hatter that was certainly not in the book (even though Lewis was reportedly infatuated with 7-year-old Alice Liddell, his model for the title character).
The Queen, by the way, is a CGI creation with a huge head. Why she has a huge head is far, far beyond my ability to contemplate. The novelty effect, however, wore out quickly and I was forced to stare at her disturbingly large cranium throughout the motion picture.
Aiding the monarch's nasty designs is Crispin Glover (George McFly of "Back to the Future" fame) as Stayne, the Knave of Hearts. It was good to see Glover in a film again and one of the few characters I actually liked here.
Meanwhile, the Hatter is captured and Alice must turn into a commando to free him before the Queen shouts, "Off with his head!" (which she does, over and over and over and over again). To add to this plot complication, Alice enlists the aid of the White Queen (Anne Hathaway in the same make-up used by Bette Davis in "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?"), who resides in a snow-globe of a kingdom.
Meeting on a chessboard in a "Lord of the Rings"-type showdown, the Queen of Hearts releases her not-so-secret weapon, the Jabberwocky, which is basically a horned dragon. Okay, how many times have we seen such an inclusion ("Enchanted," "Harry Potter," "The Sword and the Dragon," "Beowulf," "Eragon," etc., etc., etc.)? Frankly, I'm as tired of lame dragon effects as I am of directors changing original material to meet their egotistical cravings.
Was all of this a dream? Was it real? Do we care? Did we just see Johnny Depp do a crazed Michael Jackson imitation? After her adventures through the looking glass, Alice then returns to Sense & Sensibility manor to give the quivering Lord Ascot her answer on his proposal.
By then, I had completely lost interest in the film, Lewis Carol, Tim Burton and life in general. Even though this movie was made by Disney, instead of paying to see this installment, just rent the studio's animated 1951 classic or better off, enjoy the original book.