WHEN it was announced that Goth-pop filmmaker Tim Burton was going to remake Alice in Wonderland, on paper it appeared a match made in cinematic heaven.
With a back-catalogue featuring some of cinema’s most unique treats (Edward Scissorhands, Batman and Beetlejuice to name just a handful), Burton seemed the ideal candidate to give Lewis Carroll’s Alice a 21st century makeover.
Burton gathered a stellar cast of his favourites (Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter), bona fide stars (Anne Hathaway) and fresh talent (Australia’s Mia Wasikowska), recruited high-profile scriptwriter Linda Woolverton and told the world he was going to make his Wonderland a 3D visual spectacular.
It appeared he was going to try to make his 3D Wonderland the 2010 equivalent of Dorothy walking into a Technicolor Oz back in 1939.
However, what sounds good on paper doesn’t always translate into reality and, sadly, that is what has happened here.
The story itself could have saved this film, however it seems the scriptwriter was relying on the amazing visuals to give the story more impact than what this paper-thin narrative could offer.
It opens with a 19-year-old Alice (Wasikowska) at a crossroads in her life.
While she has grown up and blossomed into a beautiful young woman, she is still haunted by the same dream, her journey to Wonderland as a wide-eyed youngster.
When she is proposed to by a man she has no romantic interest in, she escapes back to Wonderland, where she finds the huge-headed Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter playing, well, herself) is destroying everything.
A group of familiar characters – including the mad hatter (a ludicrously miscast Depp), the Cheshire Cat and Tweedledee and – dum (Little Britain’s Matt Lucas) – are not convinced this is the same Alice that has been prophesised as the one to come and save them from the evil queen’s rule.
After the visual phenomenon that is Avatar, global audiences are eagerly awaiting the next movie to submerse them into a 3D cinematic experience and, alas, Alice isn’t going to be the movie to do that.
Whereas Cameron filmed his visual opus in 3D, Burton opted against this, deciding to convert it after filming, because it is easier and cheaper.
As such, the 3D and overall visuals of Wonderland are as good as your basic by-the-numbers CG blockbuster – not the groundbreaking visual experience we were being told to expect.
Alice in Wonderland (PG)
Directed by: Tim Burton
Starring: Johnny Depp, Mia Wasikowska, Helena Bonham Carter
Rating: Two-and-a-half stars
Screening: Now