Not much Carroll, but a visual treat

Rating: 7/10 (25 March 2010)

This film reminds me of one of those recipes where you take all the pulp out of something like a red pepper or an eggplant, chop it all up, add lots of other things, stuff it all back in and bake the stuffed object at a high temperature for a goodly time. The result is interesting but doesn't bear much relationship to the original. Technically the film is a sequel rather than an adaptation of the original books by Lewis Carroll, but while much use is made of the physical aspects of Carroll's characters the essence of the books, the absurd logic and the teasing ideas is displaced by a fairly conventional kid's adventure story – Avatar for the under 12s.
Nevertheless the whole thing is visually splendid and beautifully rendered in 3-D. Mia Wasikowska is a gorgeous 19 year old Alice and the supporting cast of great and famous British and (odd) American actors can hardly be faulted. Even 92 year old Michael Gough popped up as the voice of the Dodo. Anne Hathaway's make-up made her look more like a New Orleans brothel keeper than the White Queen, and Crispin Glover's Stayne was less comic than was called for, but by and large the main parts are very well done. Johnny Depp as the only mildly Mad Hatter and Helena Bonham Carter as the Red ("off with his head)" Queen were right in character and Stephen Fry positively purred his way along as the Cheshire Cat.
We might have all read the books in this case, but Tim Burton was not out to give us a faithful adaptation. Disney as producers has not always done well with Alice in Wonderland – an interesting animated version which followed the books closely tanked in 1952 – and this time the studio was taking no chances. The few kids at the screening I saw seemed to like it well enough but there wasn't quite the enthusiasm I saw in "Avatar."