Miss-titled misfiring mistaken mess?

Rating: 3/10 (31 December 2010)

To begin at the beginning (as the Queen of Hearts says... in the book), this is not Alice in Wonderland. Yes, I know its a Tim Burton re- imagining, but that is not what I mean. What I mean is this is Alice Through the Looking Glass - 90% of the characters and what remains recognisable from the original plot is Looking Glass, not Wonderland.
Does this matter? Yes - because it betrays a complete lack of any knowledge and feeling for Carol and Alice to mix the two books together, even in a "re-imagining", even by Burton. Especially by Burton. Its just plain lazy. As another reviewer has said, it even makes you wonder if Burton has read the books, or done anything at all other than watch the original (and truly dreadful) Disney cartoon.
Then to compound that by throwing in the "jabberwocky" (and he even gets that wrong - the creature is a "jabberwock" for heaven's sake - read the damn poem, Burton!), and then centre the film round that??? A story within story that is not Wonderland anyway? Lazy, unthinking, meaningless.
And then make it a dragon too! Lazy, lazy, lazy! Forget the Tenniel picture, read the poem, and work out for yourself what a MANXome foe that scratches with its claws is! Do some damn research, Burton! Let's just TRY to be original, shall we? Isn't that what you are famous for?
What makes it even more annoying, even if you ignore all of the above, is that the film could so easily have been so much better. Because the initial conceit is promising. Call her anything other than Alice and you have the tale of a young woman finding herself in her own childhood dream/nightmare. Wonderland is, in so many ways, a nightmare - not a cuddly dream, and who better than Burton to realise this?
But from this great, exciting, edge of the seat start it all goes horribly wrong. Alice not only fails to remember her dream (a fact that totally contradicts the opening scenes), but shows not emotion at all when all kinds of strange things happen - things that made the child Alice cry. Weird stuff abounds, but for no reason or plot purpose - the Red Queen's head being just one example.
We have a plot device added by Burton - a scroll that predicts the future and which Alice sort of tries to escape from (well, in a very half-hearted way, frankly). Could this be a theme, you think? A point? A purpose? Nope - remove the scroll from the story and you'd lose nothing. So what the heck was the point of having it?
Yes, its a very pretty film - a memorable, visual feast. But you need more than pretty pictures to make a film - you need a story, a point, something to say. This says nothing. Other than a lazy man with no clear ideas getting by on reputation.
So - a couple of points for the visuals, and one bonus for the potential shown at the start. But zilch for the rest.