USA 2010 108 mins Dir: Tim Burton Starring: Johnny Depp, Mia Wasikowsa, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, Matt Lucas Voices: Michael Sheen, Stephen Fry, Alan Rickman, Barbara Windsor, Christopher Lee l Tim Burton doing Lewis Carroll? It’s difficult to imagine a better combination. As anticipated, Burton brings his usual gothic sensibility to what is effectively a sequel. Writer Linda Woolverton’s liberties with the storyline and characters are

certain to upset sniffy purists. But since that’s their default state, you’d be advised to leave them to their sulking and enjoy Burton’s highly entertaining spectacle at least until the closing credits, dodging out under cover of darkness to avoid the awful Avril Lavigne song.

In the Burton/Woolverton makeover, imaginative, free-spirited Alice (the rather bland Mia Wasikowsa) is now 19 and about to be betrothed at a country house garden party to a frightful ginger toff with a ‘digestive problem’. Then she spots the beckoning White Rabbit (Sheen) and flees into Wonderland - here renamed Underland - where convenient amnesia prevents her from recognising all her old pals, who bicker over whether she’s the Wrong Alice. Today, Underland is under the jackboot of the petulant, literally bigheaded Red Queen (a spirited performance by Helena Bonham Carter, pitching it somewhere between Blackadder’s Elizabeth I and Anne Robinson) and it is Alice’s mission to restore her sister, the White

Queen (Hathaway), to the throne. As you might expect, the 3D CGI Underland is lovingly designed and stunningly rendered with Burtonised nods to John Tenniel’s original illustrations. The voice cast are terrific too, with Matt Lucas perfectly incarnated as the Tweedles, Stephen Fry making a splendidly smug Cheshire cat, and Barbara Windsor proving an unlikely success as the dormouse. Refreshingly, political correctness and concessions to nervous children get short shrift as Alan Rickman’s caterpillar produces huge clouds of 3D smoke from his hookah, while the Bandersnatch has an eye gouged out and the Jabberwocky (Lee) is eventually beheaded. On the downside, the plot sags in the middle, the 3D proves distracting

and uncomfortable in the brief aboveground sequences, and the expansion of the gap-toothed Mad Hatter’s role affords Johnny Depp another opportunity for selfindulgence that goes off the rails with a random Scottish accent and an ill-conceived dance sequence causing everything to grind to a halt. Adults seeking a pub argument afterwards would do well to reflect on the ending, which sees the emancipated Alice embarking on an imperialist adventure. (Robin Askew) 4*

website www.disney.go.com/disneypictures/aliceinwonderland/

For screening details, see Index, page 47