The idea of Walt Disney Studios and Director Tim Burton teaming for a family movie seems almost too perfect a marriage. As a matter of fact, Disney will now have to rethink its theme park’s Mad Hatter ride, undoubtedly expanding it to something as thrilling as their Haunted House ticket. But despite all of its eye-popping splendor, in the end it adds up to disappointing. While the story sticks to much of the original tale – Alice wanders off, falls down a rabbit hole and lands at a tea party, drinks potions that make her small and then large, etc., Burton manages his own twisted version. And that’s fine. Leave it to Burton to make Alice (Mia Wasikowska) unconventionally pretty – an anemic-dark-circle-eyed girl with skin so pale and a challenging troubled-teen attitude she’s more “Go Ask Alice.” Apparently she has some sort of sleeping disorder that delivers bad dreams. Burton’s real life wife, Helena Bonham Carter steals the show as the Red Queen – an amusing albeit horrid thing who demands “Off with their heads!” to anybody who pisses her off. Johnny Depp is as good as Depp can be as the Mad Hatter who resembles Albert Einstein as the Mad Hatter. His accent lapses from British to Scottish to occasional pirate-matey. Anne Hathaway has the quintessential Disney fairytale role as the White Queen who seems underused and delicate in a movie that often feels very David Lynch. But when the plot moves from Alice in Wonderland to Clash of the Titans it loses its magic and lacks emotion. Even the movies palette is far from primary colors but instead more dreary Sweeney Todd Burton’s better extravangza. The 3D tricks do delight, but in the end, this teen with sleep disorder should just get a prescription of Ambien and save us all from her Nightmares Before er, Easter. Two Tiaras
