The Thousands

So many people must say to Tim Burton, “You should totally make a movie out of [insert colourful, absurdist text with childlike hero]!” Well, Alice In Wonderland is a very good impression of a Tim Burton film. The CGI-heavy product design looks an absolute treat, and Burton has fun with 3D technology, especially in the ‘down-the-rabbit-hole’ scene.

But the plot lets it down. I didn’t mind the inclusion of characters from Lewis’s later Through The Looking-Glass as much as the limp, unconvincing gestures to feminism and the way Alice (Mia Wasikowska) becomes some kind of insurgent guerrilla: lured back to Wonderland at age 19 in order to slay the Jabberwocky (Christopher Lee) and hand the throne from the Red Queen (Helena Bonham-Carter) back to the White Queen (Anne Hathaway).

Wasikowska’s dry skepticism contrasts nicely with the hammy Hathaway and Bonham-Carter, while Stephen Fry and Alan Rickman make fine work of the Cheshire Cat and Blue Caterpillar, respectively. But the usually excellent Johnny Depp is a lazy disappointment as the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp). His bizarre lapses into a Scottish accent are curiouser and curiouser than anything else in Wonderland.