Movie Review : Alice in Wonderland 3D

'Twas Brillig when I decided to go and see this movie yesterday. I must confess to feeling like a slithy tove must feel when they gyre and gimble in the wabe. Nay, I would rather say mimsy, just like the borogoves, just before the mome raths outgrabe!

[And if you understand not a single word of all this gibberish, then read no more. Neither the movie nor this review will have been to your liking.]

And so the movie begins in earnest, showing us Alice as a small girl (presumably around the age she first went to Wonderland, in the Disney animated movie), and shortly thereafter we see her as a young woman, on her way to a social engagement of some sort, where another type of engagement (or the worst kept secret ever) waits for her. As soon as she gets there, she senses that something else is demanding her attention : all the while she is distant and aloof, looking for a certain movement from the corner of her eye, and to compound things, the proposal leaves her dazed, so much so that away she runs, and finds a rabbit wearing a waistcoat, grabbing on to a watch, claiming that he's late. After him she runs, and inevitably she falls down the rabbit-hole.
And this, this is when the movie becomes intrinsically Tim Burton. From the moment she arrives in Wonderland, we can feel that this is not a dream, not a vision... it is beautiful, but frightening and menacing as well.
To help her along the way, Tweedledee and Tweedledum and The Dormouse escort her to The Catterpillar, who casts even more doubt on whether or not she is who she says she is, and, more importantly, as to if she is the Alice they were expecting - and sorely needed.
After some deliberation, it is agreed that 'she isn't hardly Alice', and we see for the first time The Knave of Hearts, with his Army, and we are treated to the Jubjub Bird as well as he who must be shunned : the frumious Bandersnatch.
Alice eludes the pursuit, and meets the Mad Hatter, who, for some reason reminded me terribly of Groundskeeper Willie from The Simpsons, red hair and Scottish accent and all. The loony hatter is joined by the hectic March Hare and The Mouse, who try to keep Alice safe at all costs : alas, so that she may remain free, they are captured by the Knave of Hearts.
And how could I forget the scene -stealing Queen of Hearts Red Queen? Every single scene she's in is all the more amazing because of her sheer presence. [But the less said about the confusion between The Queen of Hearts and The Red Queen, the better...]
She naturally strives to make Alice her captive, but she is so blind to all the falsehoods that people her court, that even when Alice is right in front of her, she fails to recognize her. And so it is that Alice becomes faced with a choice : to be the Alice that Wonderland needs, or leave them to their doom.
Just like in every hero's journey, as Joseph Campbell so brilliantly described in his 'The hero with a thousand faces', Alice must meet first attain the legendary weapon that will give her the edge she needs in order to defeat her ultimate foe : The Jabberwock, all eyes of flame, jaws that bite and claws that catch! With The Vorpal Blade in hand, she is ready to slay him, and although we don't get the 'one-two! one-two! and through and through', she did leave it dead. But, alas, with its head she did not go galumphing back...
One last thing... obviously, Cheshire himself was the best part of the whole thing, though I can't help but feel that Nightcrawler from the X-Men did something really nasty to/with Garfield, and thus we have Cheshire... And whoever decided to cast Mr. Stephen Fry as Cheshire deserves an Oscar just for that.

Okay, so all this said.... what did I think of the movie? Nice story, sure, but so full of holes and inconsistencies that a child could see through it. Full of 'girl-power', of course. The voice acting was arguably better than the the other acting, itself. Johnny Depp can't make a bad character, or make a character bad, but his approach to the Mad Hatter was... huh... intriguing. It didn't really work well all the time, but when it did, it was something to behold. The Tweedles, Cheshire and The Red Queen were probably the best of the cast, and they certainly did get the best lines.
However... and bearing all this in mind... it's a freaking beautiful movie in glorious 3D that is worth the price of admission alone. It's enough to make you forget all that's glaringly wrong with it, and give you roughly two hours in Wonderland. It's far from perfect, but it's as close to taking us to Lewis Carroll's fabled land of wonders as we're likely to ever get.