REVIEW: Alice has grand moments, but it's not as wonderful as it could be

GRADE: B+

ALICE IN
WONDERLAND

Cast: Johnny Depp, Mia Wasikowska, Helena Bonham Carter, Crispin Glover, Anne Hathaway, Alan Rickman, Stephen Fry, Michael Sheen

Director: Tim Burton

Theaters: Carmike, Chapel Hills, Cinemark, Cinemark IMAX, Gold Hill, Hollywood, Tinseltown

Rated: PG (for fantasy action/violence involving scary images and situations, and for a smoking caterpillar) (Officially the funniest/dumbest MPAA rating ever!)

Running time: 1 hour, 48 minutes

When did you last see a truly great Tim Burton film? Sure, there have been respectable entries (“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “Sweeney Todd”), but the last truly exceptional Burton film was indubitably “Edward Scissorhands,” exactly 20 years ago.

It cannot be argued that Burton picks quintessentially perfect material for his gothic, off-bubble sensibilities. (What could be better suited to his warped imagination than “Alice in Wonderland,” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow?”) And yet, these films never quite come together as one might hope. They are more interesting than they are accurately good.

Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” proceeds exactly like the original, so much so, in fact, that I began questioning whether it was a sequel and assumed it was a reimagining with an older protagonist. Alice (the wonderful relative newcomer Mia Wasikowska), now of marriageable age, cares little for the customs and ridged formalities of her straight-laced, Victorian age; she’s constantly bucking the social norms for her gender, overtly questioning authority and allowing her imagination unfettered reign. She’d be a 21st century woman trapped in a 19th century corset —if she’d bother wearing one.

When Alice falls down a gaping rabbit hole and encounters a hassled hare, a haughty caterpillar, a wispy Cheshire Cat, twins Tweedledum and Tweedledee, one very Mad Hatter and a cornucopia of other fantastical creatures, she does not panic. After all, these are the characters of a dream she’s had nightly since she was a little girl. Or at least Alice (and Lewis Carroll) thought Wonderland was a dream.

If it is merely a dream, it is one from which she cannot wake up. Wonderland, once a place of unparalleled exoticism and beauty, is now a wasteland controlled by the malevolent Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter), who rules her kingdom with one abidingly simple mantra: “Off with their heads.”

Turns out Alice is destined to slay the Queen’s fearsome Jabberwocky (another tangential Carroll creation) and rid Narnia of the White Witch, er, Wonderland of the Red Queen.

There is undeniable wonder in “Alice in Wonderland.” However, despite some phenomenal imagery, the production design, while textbook Burton, is still oddly under-realized.

It must be said that CGI has not been good to Burton. His films have become too plastic, too processed, too slick. They lack the wild-eyed delirium that comes from marrying necessity to invention. His imagination thrives (or used to thrive) on delicious low-rent effects. The ability to see every unrestrained nuance of his vision fulfilled has, counter-intuitively, robbed his films of the creative zest and inventive verve that marked his earlier classics.

It has also robbed them of a considerable degree of heart. (Many of the 3-D effects, added in post-production as afterthoughts, come in the beginning, when we are treated to some fantastical flights of fancy. For the remainder of the film it is not really noticeable, more a 3-D diorama than a 3-D movie.)

Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland,” while enjoyable and at times even brilliant, is frequently just plain noisy and fatiguing. Wonderland is populated by fantastical creatures, themselves avatars for equally fantastic actors.

And while each of the leads is terrific, it is not Johnny Depp who steals the show (zany and overpowering as he is), but Carter, delightful in her unpolluted, unsophisticated villainy.

Ironically, the film really seems to find its footing at the very end, when it is revealed that we’ve not been watching a fanciful daydream, but a coming-of–age story, a metaphor for young female empowerment that shines as brightly and dazzlingly as the armor Alice dons, à la Joan of Arc. “This is my dream,” Alice says defiantly. “I make the path!”

There is a wonderful little line of dialogue that several times breaches the surface of the script. “Am I mad?” more than a few characters ask, fretfully. “Yes,” is the reply, “you’re mad. But all the best people are.” Surely this sentiment describes director Burton. I just wish there was a little less method in it.