“I don’t think I want to see that Alice movie,” my daughter told me last December.  We were at the movies, sitting through the trailer for the big-budget remake of Alice In Wonderland by Tim Burton.  That trailer made the film look like an absolute creep-fest for young tots, which it probably is.  I don’t think my five-year-old would like the Jabberwocky.  Or the Bandersnatch.  Or even the March Hare, who has a nasty habit of throwing things about the tea table.  But I get ahead of myself.

Tim Burton is nothing if not gifted at creating fascinating and strange worlds.  In Edward Scissorhands, he gave us a pastel suburbia haunted by its sameness and an ancient castle that looked over it.  His two Batman films brought out the darkness in that character and its setting, Gotham City.  And in Sweeny Todd, he was so successful in recreating filthy London that I was turned off by the whole affair.  So, heeding my daughter’s warning, it was with some amount of hesitation that I approached Alice in Wonderland.

In the current version, Alice is 19 years old and about to be married off to a priggish society boy.  It’s her wedding day in fact, so wouldn’t you know that the old White Rabbit would appear and lead Alice away from the altar and down a hole into Wonderland — or is it Underland?  The movie seems to make a point of using the second name.  There, she encounters familiar bottles labeled “drink me” and cakes labeled “eat me.”  She grows smaller and taller, leading to some great set decoration involving oversized keys and teapots.

Shortly after arriving, Alice — who protests to everyone in that she is not “the” Alice — learns that the reason she’s been brought to Underland this time is to slay the Jabberwocky on Frabjous Day.  She’s led to the Mad Hatter’s table, who becomes her ally in the quest to fulfill her destiny.  Johnny Depp, as the Hatter, delivers a typically unique performance.  There’s a some melancholy beneath his madness.

Alice infiltrates the Red Queen’s (Helena Bonham Carter, excellent) castle to steal the Vorpal Sword and return it to the White Queen (Anne Hathaway, ridiculous characterization), and then... and then... where is this all going, anyway?  For the first two-thirds of Alice in Wonderland, we’re treated to Tim Burton’s imaginative re-telling of the world of Alice.  But for the film’s climax, we get a battle, followed by the Hatter dancing the Futterwacken, an outrageously anachronistic dance set to even more inappropriate hip-hop lite music by Danny Elfman.  And what has young Alice learned in the end?  That she doesn’t want to be married at all, and that she has a hidden talent for the world of international trade (don’t ask).

I wouldn’t immediately write off Alice in Wonderland from your list, though, especially if you admire Burton, Depp, or Crispin Glover, who’s come a long way from George McFly to find his niche playing the bad guy (I loved him in this movie).  But the film squanders its setup with a cliched finale.  What’s the point of that?  I dunno, why is a raven like a writing desk?

ALICE IN WONDERLAND ON DVD & BLU-RAY

The DVD and Blu-ray edition of Alice in Wonderland includes a few special features.  None of them deviate far from the standard talking heads interviews with cast and crew, but I did like the two-minute feature on the various pastries and cakes that appear in the film.  It turns out that cakes baked to old Victorian recipes hold up better under the bright lights of film sets than contemporary cakes.  No word on how they hold up, taste-wise.

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