This quasi-sequel to the genuine Alice in Wonderland novel concerns a 20 years old Alice a terrifically low-key and deviously seductive Mia Wasikowska on the precipice of accepting an unwanted engagement to a connected young-gentleman. At the time of said proposal Alice is distracted by a strange anthropomorphic rabbit that seems to be gaming for her attention. History repeats itself and Alice again tumbles down the rabbit hole into the magical world of Underhand. But Underhand is now a desolate fire-scorched world ruled by the Red Queen Helena Bo-ham Carter.
Alice does not memorize her previous trip when she was a wee child but apparently it is her destiny to return and make things right again. The complexion she meets are certainly eye-catching and the White Rabbit voiced by Michael Sheen percolates with antic charm and Tweedledum and Tweedledee Matt Lucas are fleshy twins and the Cheshire Cat with electric blue stripes is voiced by Stephen Fry in drolly amused dry-sherry tones. Then there is Johnny De-pp who plays the Mad Hatter with multicolored eyes an exploding Bozo carrot top and a gaze of luminous dementia. He is a fantastic image but once De-pp opens his mouth what comes out is a noisome Scottish twang that makes everything he says sound more or less the same and depp’s counterpart in shrill sameness is Helena Bonham Carter. Unfortunately Anne Hathaway is miscast as her sister the White Queen as her white hair and black eyebrows look weird and she is not temperamentally suited to the role’s benign arrogance.
Tim Burton with his crazy love for rabbit-hole alternative worlds Beetle-juice baroque oddballs Batman Edward Scissor-hands and kiddie fables told with a cynical wink Charlie and the Chocolate Factory would seem to be the perfect director to adapt Carroll’s legendary tale and make a memorable zany-dark movie out of it. But Burton’s Disneyfied 3-D Alice in Wonderland, written by the girl-power specialist Linda Woolverton Beauty and the Beast is a strange brew indeed. It is murky diffuse and meandering set not in a Wonderland that pops with demented life but in a world called Under-land that’s like a joyless bombed-out version of Wonderland and it looks like a CGI head trip gone post apocalyptic. In the film’s rather humdrum 3-D, the place doesn’t dazzle it droops. The 3D conversion actually works best in the real-world prologue and epilogue when it creates a genuinely immersible experience. Yet once the picture descends into fantasy, so much of what you see is so obviously fake that you can’t believe your eyes no matter what dimensions the image is in.
The 3D is not terribly distracting but it adds very little to the experience and is probably a large part of why the film’s colors seem so muted and pale and quite frankly this one can be enjoyed far well in a 2D screen.
