Burton’s ‘Alice’ is no ‘Wonderland’

While plenty of people were ready and waiting for Tim Burton to put his trademark visual style to "Alice in Wonderland," I was left underwhelmed.

Burton's early work in the '80s and '90s, with his gems like "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure," "Beetlejuice" and "Ed Wood" are classic films.

However, the director has had more misses than hits over the past decade, with only "Big Fish" being a memorable movie.

After seeing "Alice in Wonderland" in 3-D, Burton's still on a cold streak.

Mia Wasikowska stars as Alice, but this adaptation takes place several years after the events most viewers will remember from other versions of the story.

Instead, Alice is a 19-year-old girl who is being pressured into marrying Hamish, the son of her father's business partner (played by Leo Bill from the recent indie release "Me and Orson Welles").

He chooses to ask for her hand in marriage at an elegant event, but Alice has been distracted the entire day by an odd looking rabbit.

Once Hamish pops the question, Alice decides she needs a moment to think and winds up following the rabbit into a hole where she is transported into a strange world.

While the odd characters she meets there – such as the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum (Matt Lucas) and the Caterpillar (Alan Rickman) – know who she is, she doesn't remember she had been in this land before, let alone why she has been brought back.

Believing the whole experience is just a dream, Alice ends up in an unbelievable adventure when she discovers she may be an important part of a battle between the evil Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) and the good White Queen (Anne Hathaway).

Anyone who saw the trailers for this film and expected Burton to repeat his darkly stylized treatment of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" with "Alice in Wonderland" were absolutely correct.

Unfortunately, that can be both good and bad, considering Burton's adaptation of "Charlie" brought equal amounts of praise and hatred.

I was taken back by the visual spectacle Burton brought to "Alice," but that doesn't necessarily make the movie very good.

Burton's version of "Alice" might be a bit too influenced by his dark and twisted visual persona, which results in a movie that lacks the charm of other adaptations of Lewis Carroll's classic books.

Considering Burton has a fanbase that follows his work religiously, I'm sure that hardcore fans already had their minds made up when they bought T-shirts of Depp as the Mad Hatter from Hot Topic several months before the release date.

At this point, Burton's films lack the handmade quality and quirky comedic timing that made his earlier works so entrancing.

Now all we get is more of the same cast and overly digital effects. At least it all looks neat in digital 3-D.

That's not enough to recommend "Alice in Wonderland."

Just stay home and watch "Edward Scissorhands" again. It'll save you $3 for glasses and the possibility of a headache.

Grade: C-