Film Review: Alice in Wonderland

I love Alice in Wonderland. I also love the films of Tim Burton. So when I heard that he was doing a version of Alice, needless to say I was super stoked. However, the end result left me a bit divided. While I loved the colors, some of the lines uttered by the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) and the Cheshire Cat, I was expecting a bit more of the famous Burton weirdness. I was also hoping it would be a bit more sinister than it was...though yes, I understand this is Disney, and as such needed to keep it on the lighter side. Other than that, I thought it turned out fairly well. The story starts out with a young Alice coming to her father after having a reoccuring dream, then flash forwards to 12 years later where, during a party, a now 19 year Alice (Mia Wasikowska) is expected to be proposed to by a young future Lord named Hamish. Things go awry though when she sees a white rabbit pointing to a pocket watch. As expected, she follows him, falls down the rabbit hole and returns to Wonderland (here called Underland...apparently Alice misunderstood the name the first time around), where the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) with the help of her top knight Stayne, the Knave of Hearts (Crispin Glover) has taken over and exiled her sister the White Queen (Anne Hathaway) who is the rightful heir. So it's up to Alice to find her "muchness" and help the Hatter and the rest of her friends defeat the Red Queen and return Underland to it's rightful order. This version, like the many others before it, is also a mix of both novels Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. I recommend it for fans of anything Alice or Tim Burton, though Burton purists may not consider it one of his best (it isn't one of his worst though in my opinion). I give this version of Alice in Wonderland 3 out of 5 stars.