Review: Alice In Wonderland
Tim Burton’s unique style fits the source material like a glove and the star-studded cast deliver solid performances, so it’s frustrating that Alice In Wonderland feels like a collage of good ideas rather than a complete package. More like a music video than a film it is beautiful and entertaining but combining Tim Burton’s artistry with the literary work of Lewis Carroll set such high expectations that the stylish but simple film we ended up with feels like it could have been so much more.
The costumes and make-up are arguably even more striking that the CGI.
Alice In Wonderland actually takes place 13 years after Alice In Wonderland (I know), with Alice now 19 and on the verge of an arranged marriage. She soon takes another tumble down the rabbit hole and hardly remembers her last dreamy trip. Her forgetfulness allows Burton to combine old and new material, keeping the story fairly fresh while still achieving a sense twisted nostalgia, it works well. While the thought of Wonderland re-imagined by Burton is the main draw of the film and an aesthetic treat from start to finish, elsewhere the film is less than inspired. Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter for example, is a fittingly skitzophrenic mixture of Willy Wonka and Jack Sparrow, and while this tried and tested archetype clearly works for Depp, it’s bordering on clichéd at this point. The predictability of the roles continues through the film, Stephen Fry ( The Cheshire Cat) and Alan Rickman (The Blue Caterpillar) voice functional but uninspired CGI characters and the lesser known cast (a talking dog and mouse) veer dangerously close to Shrek territory.
While there is a certain charm in filling every single role with a big name actor (Christopher Lee makes an appearance for all of two lines), everybody seems to be playing a role they have played before. Depp is a mad but likeable rogue, Fry is an almost omnipresent narrator, Lucas provides Little Britain style comic sketches, Christopher Lee is a deep-voiced bad guy and Anne Hathaway is a perfect princess. Bonham Carter feels more original as the Red Queen, filling her evil dictator role with hilarious infantile glee and Alice, played by unknown actress Mia Wasikowska provides a relatable anchor to the real world and a much needed contrast for the more eccentric characters. While there is only one truly dud performance, courtesy of The Knave of Hearts (Crispin Glover), there is an overwhelming feeling that everybody is playing roles within their comfort zone and the sense of déjà vu takes away from the performances somewhat.
There's a more than a hint of Stewie Griffin in The Red Queen.
One of the reasons that Carroll’s original novels were so well loved is because of their veiled adult themes and while they are certainly present in Burton’s adaption, he fails to integrate them as subtly as I would have hoped. A perfect example of this is Alan Rickman’s bong smoking Blue Caterpillar, his hazy scenes feel like a concession for adult audience members and are a little jarring to the overall flow of the film. Similarly jarring, a few sequences solely exist to highlight the “magic” of the 3D format and are laughably and needlessly forced into the film. They look pretty enough but the retrofitted 3D of Wonderland is no match for the subtlety of Pandora.
Alice In Wonderland shines in Tim Burton’s aesthetic direction, and while the clichéd characters and plot begin to wear by the end of the film, they don’t come close to ruining the fun. It’s an engaging and relentlessly pretty trip down the rabbit hole, but with sloppy pacing and cut/paste characters, you’re unlikely to loose yourself there.
Rating: 
Very good review (especially the last paragraph), the film was okay a bit slapstick at points but worth a watch