Return to Wonderland

Rating: 7/10 (7 January 2013)

Nineteen year old Alice Kingsleigh has been having the same dream since she was a child; a strange dream featuring a mad hatter, a variety of talking animals and a cat that smiles. On the day of her engagement party she sees a white rabbit wearing a waistcoat and follows it; she falls down the rabbit hole and finds herself in Underland... the place of her dreams. As she meets familiar characters she assumes she is dreaming; perhaps she is but she can't wake herself up and the dangers there do seem real. She learns that they expect her to fulfil a prophecy; to do that she will have to get the Vorpal sword from the palace of the evil Red Queen and slay the fearsome Jabberwocky.
I haven't seen previous adaptations of the 'Alice in Wonderland' story but know enough to realise it was originally about a little girl. Tim Burton's idea of making this as a Return to Wonderland didn't bother me and I thought Mia Wasikowska did a decent job in the role. The rest of the cast; both those physically acting and those providing the voices for various CGI creatures was pretty good although at times Johnny Depps performance as the Hatter seemed like a series of disjointed performances; this may have been designed to emphasise the characters 'madness' but I'm not sure that it worked. The story itself was a fairly run of the mill quest but it featured some amusing characters and a succession of entertaining set pieces. The story is obviously aimed at viewers much younger than me but some scenes may be a little shocking for younger children; I was more than a little surprised to see a creature have one of its eyes removed by one of the goodies in a Disney film! Overall I'd say this film has plenty of flaws and is far from a classic but it is still worth watching on television.