Alice in Wonderland User Reviews

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The day I watched Alice in Wonderland turned out to be a very bad day indeed.  The rest of my day just went very, very poorly after watching this boring, lifeless mess.   
 
Let's start with the story, shall we?  Instead of remaking the original story, Burton has instead crafted a pseudo-sequel.  This is a strange one indeed, since while the movie takes place after the original story, Alice (Mia Wasikowska), now 19, has no recollection of Wonderland (which is actually called Underland, for some dumbass reason) and its denizens, so it's like a brand new experience.  However, it has many of the same things from the original, such as size-altering foods and tea parties.  The movie differs in a very poorly conceived second and third act where Alice discovers that she is destined to destroy the fearsome Jabberwocky in a battle.  The climax of the movie is a large-scale battle sequence.  Ugh.  
 
Underland looks OK, I suppose.  It's a Tim Burton movie, so at this point large twisted trees and weird looking things are standard fare, so it's not all that impressive anymore.  It hardly looks imaginative; in fact, it looks quite like the Disney cartoon.  I can imagine Burton might have wanted some degree of continuity, but if his crew is going to rape the story they might as well change some foliage as well.  The characters, for the most part, look somewhat unique.  Strangely, the March Hare just throws teacups and tweaks like a crack addict.  The Red Queen looks good, though very strange, but I'm  beginning to tire of Helena Bonham Carter, wide-eyed eccentricity.  Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter also turned in a woefully uninspired performance, surprisingly as the star of the movie.  He is practically a main character, for no other reason than because he and Tim Burton are joined at the hip and he needs a starring role in every Burton film. His accent is not always there, and instead of eccentric and lovably mad as he should be, he's depressed (?) and once again in full pedo mode, much like in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  None of the characters were the least bit exciting, save for the Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry), who was lovably mysterious and didn't have nearly enough screen time.  Christopher Lee as the Jabberwocky and Alan Rickman as the Caterpillar also had good voice work, but not enough screen time.   
 
I don't really know what else there is to say.  This movie is missing the charm and heart that makes it such an endearing tale in the first place.  It's so lifeless it's impossible to become immersed in it.  Worst of all, it is horribly boring and dull.  Easily the worst movie I've seen in 2010 so far.