Director: Tim Burton
Screenplay: Linda Woolverton
Camera: Dariusz Wolski
Music: Danny Elfman
Production design: Robert Stromberg
Costumes: Colleen Attwood
Cast: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Mia Washikowska
(108 min. PG)

The Bottom Line

This is another dazzling visual triumph for Tim Burton, a director whose imagination is unique in the current cinema. In it’s own way the imagery and CGI techniques are equal to that of “Avatar” but his shrewd and brilliant vision is able to evoke the fantasy world of the Victorian classic by Lewis Carroll, but to also enrich and expand it into a mind-bending fantasy where everything, from the quirky comedy to the battle with the fearsome Jabberwock is perfectly judged. There are echoes of both “Edward Scissorhands” and “Corpse Bride” but as always Burton creates a unique fantasy

Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter

Main Review

Tim Burton is a unique figure in Hollywood. He has never made a straight-forward genre movie. He is a gifted and often outrageous fantasist  and he never works within the current movie trends. On the rare occasion when he does tackle a mainstream Hollywood blockbuster, like “Batman Returns” (1992) he gives it a unique look and style. The creative relationship between Johnny Depp and Tim Burton has also been a fascinating thing to watch, but for me, their latest collaboration on “Alice in Wonderland” shows them at their bizarre, creative best. This film reminds one of the melancholy fantasy of “Edward Scissorhands”(1990) but it is filled with some of the most intriguing and elegant CGI images we have yet seen. This film won’t be to everyone’s taste but the sheer oddness and beauty of the world Burton creates, commands attention. The film draws on the characters of Lewis Carrol’s fantasy novels, “Alice in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass” but Linda Woolverton’s clever script moves that story on in time. Alice (Mia Washikowska) is now a young woman, and we meet her at a Victorian garden party at which she is to be engaged to a “suitable young man”, a real chinless wonder, and it is obvious to all concerned that this is a marriage of convenience and commercial interests.

Alice played by Mia Washikowska

This “real” section of the film is elaborately overdressed in Victorian pomp, but in Burton’s vision, and with the help of Dariusz Wolski’s dazzling cinematography, it is shown in bleached, faded colours that express what life for Alice will be like in this pompous world, where only etiquette and money hold sway. We learn that Alice’s previous adventures in Wonderland have faded in her memory. She remembers then as a remote dream, a lingering echo of her childhood  but she also remembers when she was that bold, questioning Alice, the little girl who took on the madness of Wonderland with a common-sense practicality. The sense of self and her logical mind did that served her well in Wonderland, did not fade when the “dreams” of Wonderland receded from her mind. Alice decides that she simply cannot allow herself to be locked into this charade of polite, rigid  society. She runs away from the garden-party into the countryside where she trips over a tree root and once again finds herself falling into Wonderland. There she finds all the old friends and enemies – The Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), the Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry), Tweedledum and Tweedledee (Matt Lucas) and the dreaded Jabberwocky (Christopher Lee). What surprises her is that they have all missed her and have been eagerly awaiting her return.

Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter

Wonderland, however, is not what it was. The imperious and ill-humoured Red Queen (Helena Bonham-Carter) is at war with her sister, the gracious but rather dim-witted White Queen (Anne Hathaway). The Red Queen wants to rule Wonderland as a despot, and she plans a war. Stayne, the Knave of Hearts (Crispin Glover) is her cruel henchman but she is really counting on her secret weapon, the fearsome Jabberwock. For young Alice this sense of cruelty and greed is a revelation. It’s as if the image dreadful marriage into which she was being forced has become just a bad dream. This dreamy Wonderland, to which she has returned, is her true home and she knows she must fight back against the Red Queen. She decides to stay on and fight for the salvation of a place that probably exists only in her dreams but she decides that a great dream is worth fighting for. That, of course, is the heart of this story.  Alice decides abandon the “real” world to fight for the survival of a world of vivid fantasy and vibrant magic. When you come to think about it, that’s exactly what Tim Burton has been doing throughout his entire career. This film is as much an inspiring parable about the power of magic and the imagination, as it is a fantasy adventure, complete with a battle, in which the heroic Alice, like some Joan of Arc clone, takes on the mad Red Queen and her servile cohorts.

You have to see for yourself just how beautiful and ingenious this film is. Without bombarding us with “Look at Me!” special effects, Tim Burton takes CGI imagery into an extraordinary space. Whereas “Avatar” took human actors  and turned them into exotic fantasy creatures, Burton mixes the human actors with some of the most marvelous special effects. The Cheshire Cat is like a wisp of smoke that manifests and drifts away. Johnny Depp is recognisably himself, except for his huge, cat-like eyes and Helena Bonham-Carter as the Red Queen has a grossly inflated head, a symbol of her explosive, greedy ego, lolling atop an otherwise tiny body.  The best thing about all this is that the acting performances are so precise and impressive. Helena Bonham Carter gives what is easily the most carefully executed performance she has ever given. Every character has a real tone and presence, making it a journey into a surreal world that feels absolutely real. The film ends with the start of another journey for Alice, to another remote and exotic destination, and that epilogue makes you realise just how subtle and clever Tim Burton has been in this “rite of passage” fantasy.  “Alice in Wonderland” has now replaced “Edward Scissorhands” as my favourite Tim Burton film and even if you hate CGI fantasy, you must see Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter doing a Wonderland break-dance. It’s one of the many grace notes in a really graceful film. Several cinemas are offering this film in 3D and while it is not essential, it makes a huge difference. 

The original Alice, by Tenniel

Other Views

A fantastical romp that proves to be every bit as transporting as and that movie about the blue people of Pandora, and this “Alice” is more than just a gorgeous 3D sight to behold.

Michael Rechstaffen, “The Hollywood Reporter”

Burton finely balances excess and restraint to create an absorbing, visually rich world of his very own.  

Anne Hornaday, “Washington Post”

In the end “Alice in Wonderland” comes off as manufactured as opposed to dreamy. Burton delivers all the wonder money can buy; what’s missing is the wonder it can’t.

Stephanie Zachareck, “Salon.com”