What were they thinking??

Rating: 3/10 (13 February 2011)

When you have what seems like a perfect combination of actors (Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter), director (Tim Burton) and story (Alice in Wonderland, what else needs to be said), you would expect something phenomenal. Yet somehow they managed to totally screwed it up.
Granted, the actress who played Alice was a little one dimensional and Anne Hathaway as the White Queen just plain gave me the creeps, but there is an overall shortcoming here that goes beyond any of the cast. Some of the blame would have to go to Burton for what seems to be a restrained attempted at creating Wonderland. It could have been a little darker in atmosphere (not so much to freak out kids of course) while at the same time do a better job at capturing the feel of Lewis's version with weird and magical creatures at every turn. But to be fair a considerable amount of fault has to lie on the script itself.
Something that strikes you from the start is the idea of someone coming back to a fairy tale world without ever recalling being there before. Didn't Robin Williams already do this in Hook? But more importantly, why did they feel it necessary to make it some sort of sequel to the original, especially when there has been nothing made on a scale like this before. But even if you accept it as the next step in the story, it seems odd that they would contradict so much of the original story.
One of the things that sticks out to me is the inclusion of the Jabberwock. It's existence was only in a fable with in the story. And even if one was expecting to stretch this as to the fable actually being some sort of prophecy, then Alice killing it is a total contradiction as it was killed by a boy in the original telling.
Another aspect is the handling of the White Queen. As described by Lewis, the White Queen was stupid, fat and helpless as an infant. Instead, in the movie she was thin and majestic with a bizarre habit of holding her hands up like she was about to field a punt.
As for Alice herself, she was for some reason written as a grumpy little brat who was pretty rude to most people (and animals), then in the end turns into supergirl, so much to the point that it's just plain goofy.
There is some good stuff here. Carter's portrayal of the Red Queen was perfect. And how they did that with her head is beyond me. Depp did an pretty good job, but I would have preferred that he looked a tad older, though it's not a big deal. Overall, the voice acting was great. The Cheshire Cat, Catapillar, The White Rabbit and even the little servant frogs all sounded dead on.
Perhaps I am just ticked off at the missed opportunity for making a grand scale retelling of the original story, but I honestly did go into this with high hopes anyway. I would love to see the same group (at least Burton, Depp and Carter) take a shot at the story the way Carrol originally wrote it, with a new screen writer and a less reserved Burton behind the camera. But that will never happen