When it was announced that Tim Burton was going to turn Alice in Wonderland into a big budget 3D movie for Disney, there was a fair amount of excitement from both critics and the public. Although he has his fair share of detractors, it’s impossible to deny that Burton has a distinctive sense of visual style and can create genuinely wondrous moments in his films, plus with the involvement of his acting alter-ego Johnny Depp and wife Helena Bonham Carter, the film was bound to offer interesting performances. However, on its way to the screen various misfortunes fell upon the production leading it to arrive to a rather muted reception for such a major film. Following lengthy legal battles between the UK’s cinema chains and Disney that affected the film’s pre-release publicity, Alice in Wonderland has been greeted with a fairly unanimous drubbing from critics, and it’s a shame to report that they have a point.

Instead of attempting a straight telling of Lewis Carroll’s tale, Burton’s version of Alice mashes-up elements from both the original book and its sequel Through The Looking-Glass, which in itself isn’t that much different from many of the previous film adaptations of Carroll’s writings, on top of this however is a new framing plot-line where Alice is now a young adult, having forgot her previous adventures other than in recurring dreams, and is now having to deal with real world problems such as the etiquette of social engagements and unwanted proposals of marriage. Once again she follows the nervy and elusive White Rabbit away from all this and finds herself in Wonderland, or as it’s now called ‘Underland’ whose numerous fantastical denizens hope that she will be able to deliver them from the tyrannical reign of the Red Queen, but before she can she has to remember her previous encounters with them and rediscover her sense of self, or as the Mad Hatter puts it her ‘muchness’. That rather convoluted description of the plot highlights the main problem with this adaptation in that it overcomplicates the original story to the extent where much of the fun is sucked out of it. While the original story is essentially just a collection of vignettes strung together, it was charming, compelling and coherent despite this, and other film adaptations have managed to convert this structure with entertaining results, such as in Hayao Miyazaki’s Alice-homage Spirited Away, however this version just feels like it is going through the motions to cover all the ‘greatest hits’ as Alice is forced to in turn meet all the famous characters and have the same expositional discussions with each. Additionally, the turning of Wonderland into the dark, war-ravaged place known as Underland is a major mistake as it means that Burton even has to hold back on his stylistic touches in order to render the place suitably desolate. While it’s clear that a lot of money has been thrown at the film to create moments of 3D spectacle – objects are frequently thrown at the screen in order to make the audience feel like they’ve got their money’s worth – it’s a shame that the money couldn’t have been spent on giving the script extra dimensions instead.

The two central performances are rather problematic as well. Mia Wasikowska makes for a pretty Alice but she doesn’t have much presence, remaining quiet and girlish even after Alice rediscovers her muchness, whereas Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter is simply irritating. It was perhaps a bad idea to bump up his character from supporting role to major star anyway as the dark back-story that has been created to do so doesn’t sit well with the comedic moments created by his lunatic antics. Added to this is Depp’s decision to portray the character as a jumble of comedic accents and tics, which serves as a reminder of how his Jack Sparrow was incredibly fun in the first Pirates of the Caribbean but got subsequently less so with each further film in the series.

However, there are still many parts where the film gets it right. The supporting cast, mostly comprised of familiar British faces, are generally excellent, with Stephen Fry’s Cheshire Cat standing out in particular as an always amusing mix of sophistication and mischievousness. The portrayals of the Red and White Queens are also rather inspired. Most reviews have pointed out that Helena Bonham Carter is essentially channelling Miranda Richardson’s Queenie from Blackadder II as the Red Queen and Anne Hathaway’s serene White Queen was inspired by Domestic Goddess Nigella Lawson (although Lawson never made quite so many gracefully elaborate gesticulations with her arms) and the contrast between Carter’s spoilt-child and Hathaway’s caring maternal figure is delightful. Whenever Burton is presented with the opportunity to show the more vibrant side of Wonderland the film becomes much more entertaining, such as the ostentatious palace of the Red Queen, with her royal court comprised of amusingly out of place anthropomorphic animals such as frogs, fish and pigs. It’s just a shame that these moments are so few and far between.

Simply put this is the Diet Coke version of the story, a pleasant, but artificial and unsubstantial take on an old classic. While there are worse ways to spend an evening at the cinema it feels like a missed opportunity. There are already better versions of the tale on film – even Disney’s previous version – which are more worthy of your time than this, as is a re-read of Carroll’s still amusing and enchanting books.