CINEMA: Alice in Wonderland, part 2

Lots of films out this week with a fantasy slant to them – it’s just a shame they are all rather less than fantastic.

First up is Tim Burton’s new take on Lewis Carroll’s famous children’s story but you might well find yourself wondering ‘just who the hell is Alice?’ as she’s certainly not the little girl in the blue frock and white stockings of the original.

Burton has updated the story so Alice (Mia Wasikowska) is now in her late teens and about to become unwillingly betrothed to a bit of a fop. Her escape from this awkward situation is to fall down a conveniently placed rabbit hole and find herself back in ‘Underland’ – a place she thought she had only dreamt up, but which turns out to be real. From hereon in she encounters all-too familiar looking characters such as Tweedledum and Tweedledee (Matt Lucas), The Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) and, of course, the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp in far too much make up). But, even though they are all rendered in 3D CGI none of them has the sparkle or magic of their more familiar 2D versions.

Underworld is a curious mix of the imaginative and the mundane, the psychedelic and the so-so with really impressive scenes (a footman in the shape of a frog betraying the fact he’s eaten the Queen’s tarts by an unfortunate slip of the tongue; Alice giving the Banderjack his eye back after the Dormouse has spiked it on what appears to be a hatpin) sitting back to back with colourless sequences where nothing actually happens at all.

Depp seems to be curiously out of his depth making the Mad Hatter a creature from some bad acid flashback trip, while a blonde Anne Hathaway as the White Queen is simply away with the fairies. It’s up to good old Helena Bonhan Carter, coming on like Queenie from Blackadder, to give the film a much needed kick up the backside as a vain, pompous Red Queen who can’t bear not getting her own way.

So, overall an Alice in Wonderland without the wonder comes over as an underwhelming excursion to Underland.