Entertaining enough

Rating: 7/10 (8 March 2010)

I have to be honest: while Tim Burton is certainly unique and creative people need to stop overrating him so much. Like I said you can be overrated and still very good, but come on people he's done this off kilter art style enough times by now that it's nothing new or special. He's certainly not a one trick pony, but people need to stop putting him on some kind of pedestal.
Now that that's out of the way I'd like to say that I did enjoy the movie. I always welcome a fresh take on old media IF IT'S DONE PROPERLY. The story wasn't very fresh in itself but served well enough for everything else to happen. The CGI didn't really bother me, I mean what did people expect? It was solid in itself and allowed for this whimsical world to come to life. Without it many things wouldn't have been realized properly.
I'm a big Johnny Depp fan, but didn't feel he did anything special here. I think maybe he's starting to phone in these types of characters having done them so many times already OR didn't want to be the center of attention, the latter being a good thing. I say that because there are so many unique characters you don't want to make it the Johnny Depp show. I could speculate on this for a good while but either way he was all right, it's just that his makeup and costume did a lot of the work I'm sure he'll get credit for and a character drifting in and out of an accent is perplexing and annoying for me.
Helena Bonham Carter was pretty good I must say, although with all the computer graphics I'm not certain how much she was "in" the film in the traditional sense. Did they just morph her head to a bigger size, map her face acting on to a CGI body? I have no idea. Regardless I'm willing to say she did well even though the script called for way too many "off with their heads" from her.
Overall it was a worthwhile movie to watch and I couldn't red flag anything that would freak out hardcore Alice fans. There just wasn't anything about it that leaps out at you. Just to reaffirm my stance on Burton: All I'm saying is we've seen the twisted tree branches and grim architecture enough times by now. I'd like to see something different.
PS--I was going to give this movie an extra star just because I realized later Crispin Glover was in it but decided to keep it at 7 since Depp's ridiculous dance near the end was done horribly and didn't fit well at all. What is this, So You Think You Can Dance: CGI Edition?