I wish it was easier to play the blame game in situations like this. It's not because I hate Tim Burton's latest film, but rather because I find it a curious disappointment that could have benefited from, well, something. What that 'something' is, I'm not quite sure. Are the problems with the film solely from the script, or was there studio interference from Disney (who Burton once worked for as an animator, but left due to severe creative differences)? Regardless, Burton's latest adventure, in which he uses more special effects than ever before, is nothing to go mad about, even with a stellar cast.
Set 10 years after the original Disney cartoon, Burton's film opens with Alice Kingsley (Mia Wasikowska) attending a party of stuffy English upperclassmen, where she is propositioned for engagement by Hamish (The Fall's Leo Bill), a squeamish, insufferable figure. At the moment of the proposal, however, she sees a white rabbit, and out of curiosity, follows it, slips down the rabbit hole, and enters Underland (which she misheard as Wonderland). However, there are more than a few problems. First, Alice neither remembers the place, nor believes it, convinced that she's in a dream, and just needs to wait for it to end. Second, the habitants of Underland aren't entirely convinced that she's the Alice they're looking for. And third, the Red Queen (MVP Helena Bonham Carter) has taken over Underland.
The problems with the film start with the one of the problems among the characters. The fact that Alice is so thoroughly that she's dreaming during most of the film leaves the character in a passive state. The film would have benefited from Alice more engaged in an internal struggle of being reintroduced to a world which she absolutely cannot remember. For Alice to deny Underland as a real place for a few minutes would have been perfectly fine, but to drag it out over the majority of the film is a big issue. There's also the matter of the story structure. Events often seen too quickly thrown together, rarely given enough time to have any sort of charm or impact. Alice's stay at the Red Queen's castle as her "pet" is woefully short, and the transformations that occur there are too quick. The Mad Hatter's struggle with being chained to his desk while he makes hats for the Red Queen occurs out of nowhere. One minute he's there, trying to get out of being killed, the next, Alice finds him in his room where he goes into a rage about being chained; there isn't enough time for this sort of moment to carry any weight. Then there's Depp himself, who despite spectacular design and make-up, is almost too strange (yup, you heard that right). Going between wispy quirk-fest and angry Scottish brogue, the role is less entertaining in the latter form, which is strangely unappealing or intriguing. And then there are the names. I say this because there's a problem in "Alice" similar to one in 9, which Burton produced: characters speaking to each other with instant familiarity. The most notable instance is when Alice needs to escape to the White Queen's (Anne Hathaway, good, but given too little) castle. She gets help from a talking blood hound, who only 15 minutes ago was working for the Knave (Crispin Glover) in locating Alice/the Hatter. It begs the question, why would these two have reason to work together? When exactly did the blood hound change? Sure, he's only working for the Knave so that the Red Queen will set his family free, but we never see any of that determination, or even frustration with having to side with the enemy to save his family. And while there's a major plot hole involving how the Red Queen remembers Alice, the biggest offense is a prophesying device shortly after we enter Underland that kills all tension in the story. The big battle at the end, already underwhelming enough (Burton's forte isn't action scenes) is made less excited by nature of the fact that we know what has to happen.
As for the special effects, I'm somewhat mixed. They're totally gorgeous to look at, despite being completely cartoonish. The problem with them is that Burton's film doesn't just involved VFX characters like the white rabbit, but also real people, interacting with them. The clash between the real and computer-generated makes it harder to be totally sucked into Burton's lush vision.
Well, that's enough complaining; let's focus on the good things, shall we? First, there's the casting, which is spot on, even when roles (like Alice) aren't well written/constructed. Depp is strange, Rickman as the caterpillar is good for a dry laugh, and Hathaway gets to be quirkier than ever before as the elegant yet odd White Queen. However, the two stars of the film, and the two characters who always made me smile were Stephen Fry as the voice of the exquisitely designed Cheshire Cat, and the show-stealer of them all, Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen, with a digitally enlarged head. 
First one who tracks down Helen Hunt gets a dollar. Go.
The character's design is hilarious, and so is Carter, who gets the best line. On the production front, the real stars are Colleen Atwood's gorgeous costumes; if there's one aspect of this film that deserves to be remembered during the next Oscar season, it's the wardrobe. Longtime Burton composer Danny Elfman's score is nice, but not among his best work (appropriate, since this is far from Burton's best work). It's just a shame that the good elements are so weighed down by the issues with the screenplay. But perhaps the biggest problem with the film is that Burton has followed up one of his best films (Sweeney Todd) with one of his worst.
Grade: C
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