Here is one of the best reviews I've read of Alice in Wonderland.
I couldn't help but think of Pixar's John Lassiter explaining how the Disney Co. lost its way following the death of Walt Disney. Without this visionary who emphasized the importance of the story, the Disney Co. continued to perfect the craft, but lost the story, at least for the next fifteen years.
I felt the same way watching this movie. Tim Burton is a master of special effects and has even told some very interesting stories (James and the Giant Peach, Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice and Pee Wee's Big Adventure). But in the case of this movie, he ignored the importance of storytelling. Not that he had to rehash the same story verbatim as Dickens wrote it or as it has already been told numerous times before (most other attempts having combined parts of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland with Through the Looking Glass). No, retelling it with a different angle would actually have been welcome. It's just that he failed to tell a meaningful story.
Johnny Depp did not work well in his role as the Mad Hatter, coming off more like your creepy Uncle Harold than the whimsical character that defines the role and would have worked better and had been better suited here.
Alan Rickman did an admirable job as the voice of Absolem, and most other characters were at least not disturbing. That is, other than the Dormouse, whose special talent was using its straight-pin sword to poke out the eyeballs of animals. The movie just had too much of a creepy and sick twist to it to make it satisfying, especially for a kids movie.
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