Visual Ambrosia With a HInt of Cheese.

Rating: 6/10 (5 March 2010)

I won't necessarily say this movie was horrible. I had too many high hopes prior to release to say anything close to that. At best the movie was visually stunning, captivating, and a treat for those who wanted a Zelda-esk, Final Fantasy feel. At worst this film was clichéd, predictable, Cheesy, and just plain "Over Disneyfied".
The score was magnificent. Danny Elfman did a fantastic job at recreating musically the ebbs and flows of the film, but SADLY for the first time Tim Burton Disappointed me.
Visually, other than a stunning film, there are parts of the world of Wonderland that bothered me. I didn't care if they called the place "Underland", "Wonderland", or "Crap". The entire place seemed more like a theme park ride promoting a Nintendo Game, rather than the creepy, sometimes extremely confusing, and daunting, zoomed in world that we remember. Now don't get me wrong. It would be impossible to make Wonderland look anything like the 1950's cartoon world, but they could have at least shot for some of that insanity. Instead the setting was too wide, and all the quirks that is wonderland became lost within the massive ever expanding Lord of the Rings type vistas and landscapes. Stunningly beautiful, but pointless and unnecessary in my opinion. There was a definite "unreal-ism" that seemed to be missing. If I wanted to go to Yellowstone National Park, I would.
Actors are only as good as the script they are given, which is true for any movie, including this one. Carter (red queen) and Depp (mad hatter) portrayed their characters wonderfully, but some of the lines they were given were just CHEESY and AWFUL. Depp did seem to be over-channeling Jack Sparrow at times. I'm not going to sugar coat it, I thought I was watching a movie on SCi-Fi/Disney channel collaboration there for a while there. Everybody from Alice's "real world" of London did brilliantly in my opinion, but as soon as she fell down the rabbit hole the dialogue became skewed and left a foul taste in my mouth after a while. None of the Characters were portrayed the way they were supposed to be portrayed. The Flowers talked in only one scene, and they were all grouped together with the other characters of Wonderland. Tweedledee and Tweedledum were brilliant, but not the creepy shifty eyed characters from the original film, just fat and childish. The Cheshire Cat irritated me the most; too smart and professor-like. Where was the oddball nonsense from the original, almost purposely confusing Alice? The Characters seemed out of place, almost always shown in groups, with disneyfied Dialogue. Smiling then frowning then Smiling again, hugs, in your face emotions, BARF. Mia (Alice) was brilliant at the part, but a bit dull and clueless at her lines at times.
The Plot was descent, but not good. The Helms Deep style fight sequences and over dramatization of Champions, and Swords, and Destiny's made me yawn and want to go watch Lord of the Rings again. the story was over-simplified and clearly thrown together clumsily. There is little to no character development, and the film is shot with one too many one liners. I thought I was watching several "Alice in Wonderland" commercials just strung together in sequence. Shame on you Tim Burton! Now why I don't just give this film a complete 2 or 3 score is this: THIS MOVIE WAS BEAUTIFUL. Not Alice in Wonderland beautiful, but beautiful in a Final Fantasy/Lord of the Rings/Harry Potter kind of way. Some, and I mean SOME of the dialogue sequences weren't horrible, and some, again emphasis on SOME, of the plot was fairly good. But overall . . . . I would wait for this one to come out of DVD.