The film falls flat on its stomach as soon as Alice does herself.

Rating: 6/10 (3 May 2010)

6.5
There's a truth in life that everyone sees things differently. Different environments, different lots, and different biologies make (although not really accounted to these factors) different people. Other things, such as sex and age make for a different perspective in a person. A child, a teenager, an adult, and an older person view the world respectively. Certain things such as love, violence, personalities, fear, and all kinds of other things in life are responded to and perceived differently by people of different ages. Some people tend to favor the abstract side of things. You may argue that children often tend to follow this trend.
It may have been with this in mind that Lewis Carroll penned Alice's Adventures In Wonderland in 1865. Children, I believe (at least I can say this about my own childhood), have an interesting take on life. Certain personalities can be transformed into exaggerated characters. Certain attributes as well can be exaggerated. Something that is large can appear to be immense. Just as well as something that is tiny can appear to be the smallest thing possible. The characters in Wonderland, of which the book is focused on, rather than the setting itself, may be representatives of Alice's real word associates. In the Tim Burton film, we see at the end of it that Alice relates some persons to their Wonderland counterparts. The original work, including the Disney animated film are great. Every scene, or character, is memorable and well depicted.
The same cannot be said about the 2010 film. While the characters aren't bad, they are certainly not memorable. Ask anyone who has seen the Burton film. What is the caterpillar's traits? What is he like? Who is he? If you've only seen the Burton film, chances are you're going to have some trouble in describing this character. So, such as it is, arguably the greatest strength of the Alice In Wonderland series is where the Burton film comes short. I have no ultimately negative criticisms on the director, nor the cast and crew who worked on this film. They all did their jobs (while some of the performances/jobs done were more memorable than others), but in the end the film does not deliver on the film front nor on the Alice In Wonderland front.
The other major flaw of the film is the plot. While not sticking to the original, they opted to go for more of a sequel format. What results is not the greatest or even at least remotely exciting sub plot ever for the universe. But again, this isn't the problem. The problem is the execution. A final battle results in a dull environment that exhibits almost amateurish film-making. Once again, I respect Burton, the cast, and the crew, but I was very disappointed with this film.
In the end, the movie has some success. It is only really half bad, but it could have been so good. As a fan of the book and original animated film, I was interested in this film. The live action take on the characters in Wonderland (especially The Queen) is great. I can't say the same about the environments. It starts off good, but soon falls flat on its stomach about as hard and as fast as Alice herself does in the beginning, and it also happens to do so at exactly that point. The 3D technology used in the film didn't bring much to the table. There is really not much to recommend here, but don't dismiss it as it is not a total failure. Just a slight disappointment when living up to the formula of combining the previous Alice In Wonderland works and the works of the cast and crew in the film.