“Alice in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass” by Lewis Carrol continue to be fascinating works because unlike other fantasy books from that era, the books acted more as an exploration of the human subconscious as seen through the eyes of a child in all of its absurdity and wonder than a fantastical adventure.  It’s a rare fable whose imagery only become more surreal and wild as you grow older, be it on a literary level or through more, ahem, influenced methods.

The movie, directed by Tim Burton and produced by Walt Disney Pictures, doesn’t really feel like the continuation of those themes but rather an extension of the public conception of its imagery.  As the case with a lot of sequels, simply using the characters the same way can kind of miss the point of what made those characters special.  However, it still makes for a decent, enjoyable adventure that’s sure to appease many, disappoint Carrol-lites, and justify the Burton-haters.

The film starts with a six-year-old Alice who’s been having dreams night in and night out about this weird land.  Yet her father comforts her with the notion that she is mad; but then again, “all the best people are”.
We then turn forward thirteen years where we see Alice, played by relative newcomer Mia Wasikowska, as a free-minded woman trying to deal with the expectations of the Victorian culture.  After spotting a familiar figure, she ends up falling back through the rabbit hole and back into Wonderland.

Although it isn’t Wonderland anymore; it’s now called Underland and is under the reign of the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) who has used the threat of the jabberwocky and the Knave of Hearts (Crispin Glover) to reign over the land and decapitates anyone who’s get on her wrong side.

The whole reason Alice is back is because she’s been foretold to defeat the jabberwocky and restore the crown of the White Queen (Anne Hathaway); however, since she doesn’t remember a thing about Wonderland, many of the inhabitants constantly refer to her as the “wrong Alice”.  With the help of the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) and the inhabitants of Wonderland, Alice has to find the means to take down the jabberwocky and the reign of the Red Queen.

Now, if you thinking that they screwed up and meant the White Queen instead of Red and that the Mad Hatter is supposed to the Jesus-allegory lion, I can’t blame you.  Burton and screenwriter Linda Woolverton, who wrote “The Lion King” and “Beauty and the Beast”, treats it more like “The Wizard of Oz” meets “Narnia”, particularly in the final act.  It’s fun and all, but it makes Carrol’s themes obsolete and the film feels rather passive as a result.  The original novel’s deceptively complex and we get none of that in the film.

The story does lend itself to the dark places of the mind as other sequels go incredibly dark and twisted but in a way that’s entirely psychological.  Tim Burton’s films are dark, but only aesthetically.  His most memorable works are sweetly jovial in spite of the darkness or, like his last film “Sweeney Todd”, goes completely gothic and twisted.

His weaker films are where he can’t find the right balance between jovial absurd wonder and gothic darkness.  This film falls under that, but it is on the higher spectrum of his work.
Wasikowska does a good job of portraying Alice as she’s written in the movie: a proto-feminist trying to step up for herself in unusual circumstances.  It’s to her credit that she never feels out of touch with the heavily-CGI backgrounds, adding weight to her interactions.

The veteran actors do their best, even if there’s nowhere to go with the characters.  Johnny Depp plays the Mad Hatter much like you would expect him to; I just felt that the way they were writing the character, I thought there was going to be a lot more to his character.  I blame that more on the script than Depp though.  I felt the same about Anne Hathaway’s turn as the White Queen; there seems to be more than meets the eyes with her, but we never get into that.

The most memorable human performance is Helena Bonham Carter as the huge-headed Red Queen.  She plays the Queen bombastically and humorously.  There’s this strange camp that seems to have something against her for being casted in her husband’s movies all the time.  But I say if she does the roles well and she’s right for the part, then who cares?

I was more interested in the creatures, featuring an assortment of talented British actors.  I wanted more of the sporadic White Rabbit (Michael Sheen), the sublime Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry), the delightfully twitchy March Hare (Paul Whitehouse), and the Blue Caterpillar (Alan Rickman).

While the film looks gorgeous in some areas, the CGI and certain characters feel very digital and plastic at times.  To be fair, I’m more critical since this is the first 3D films since Avatar, but there’s now a certain level of expectations that I have with CGI blockbusters.  I never completely bought into Wonderland like I did with Pandora.  The 3D doesn’t truly add that much, but it’ll provide for additional entertainment for those that are into the medium.

It’s not the spiritual sequel to the novels that people were anticipating, but it still makes for an enjoyable, harmless experience.  It has all the things that make Tim Burton’s films frustrating, but the delightful absurdity of the material overcomes the dreariness and it plays up enough of the positives of Burton’s technique to satisfy most fans.