Alice in Wonderland (**½)

Directed by: Tim Burton

Starring: Johnny Depp, Mia Wasikowska, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham-Carter, Crispin Glover, Stephen Fry (voice), Michael Sheen (voice), Alan Rickman (voice), Christopher Lee (voice)

Seen: March 6^th 2010

**½ Out of ****

Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is a visual feast. Apart from the fact that it doesn’t really work in 3D (this is not nearly in the same ball-park, or city, as Avatar), the visuals are pretty impressive. There are Easter eggs to enjoy all through the movie, referencing events, characters and items from the original Alice in Wonderland story. Yes, this is a sequel of sorts, as Alice (Wasikowska) is now 19 years old and it isn’t called Wonderland anymore, but Underland. She previously visited Wonderland 13 years earlier, but has very little recollection of that, like a long forgotten dream, which she also thinks this visit is, a dream.

In the real world Alice believes she has fallen asleep to, she is attending a massive party, where she hears that the very bland and falsely courageous Hamish Ascot is planning to ask for her hand in marriage. Unsure of her answer, she runs off, following the White Rabbit, Nivens McTwisp (Sheen), and happens upon a hole in the ground. She falls in and after falling for nearly half a minute lands in a room with a shrinking potion and a key on the table; and a growth potion-infused cake underneath said table. After a bit of shrinking and growing and shrinking again she has the key and goes through the small door into Wonderland (Underland). The Red Queen, Iracabeth of Crims (Bonham Carter) has stolen the White Queen, Mirana of Marmoreal’s (Hathaway) crown, and rules with fear, proved in part by her moat being filled with the heads of her enemies.

To equal the scales again the Red Queen’s champion, the Jabberwocky (Lee) has to be defeated, but the White Queen has no champion herself. Everyone believes this champion to be Alice, except for Alice herself – as she won’t slay anything, but then again, we all know what happens in this sort of fairytale… The side characters are all well-realised and used just enough to entertain. There’s Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the strange and eerie bald twins, the fiendish Cheshire Cat (Fry), Absolem (Rickman) the wise Blue Caterpillar who misleads Alice towards her destiny, the Mad Hatter’s tea party featuring the crazy March Hare and the too-big-for-her-shoes Dormouse, and much more. But that’s just it, this Alice in Wonderland is not its own story, it leans very heavily on the original while still trying to have its own identity, and in this it becomes rather dull, even though the visuals are so impressive. Because the story is nothing deeper than the good guys trying to find their champion and then suddenly finding him (her), the viewer doesn’t really get too invested in it. This is essentially a heap of good special effects, a stack of cards that falls over for lack of heart.

Johnny Depp is nothing near what he was in his previous movies, and I believe that any actor could have just acted a bit crazy and landed this exact same role – the whole movie and its marketing campaign was built around him, but here he doesn’t hold it all up, Mia Wasikowska brilliantly does it as Alice – slightly clueless as she continues to believe that she’s dreaming, but eventually an unlikely hero. Helena Bonham Carter is menacing enough as the evil Red Queen, and Anne Hathaway is strangely airy-fairy as the good, but pretentious White Queen.

I really wanted to enjoy Alice in Wonderland, but the moments of enjoyment were too few in what seemed an overlong advert for strange characters belonging to one side but working for the other (which just made me wonder, why so many undercover good guys working on the red side but not a single undercover bad guy on the good side?). So there you have it, as disjointed as this review may seem at times, it tells of my experience of Alice in Wonderland – visually sumptuous, but otherwise empty.