Tim Burton, one of my favorite directors, takes on Alice in Wonderland. But, it’s not the story you expect. It should have been called Alice Returns to Wonderland since this is a sequel (set 10 years later) rather than a new take on the original story. But the real question: Is it worth the time and money?

You can tell this is a Tim Burton movie, even if his name wasn’t splashed all over the title. The graphics are wonderfully deranged. The movie looks like a cartoon come to life with realistic characters (Alice and Mad Hatter mainly) interacting with semi-real and completely computer generated characters. The color schemes are wonderful, both in the “real” story and especially in Wonderland. The main exception was the Jabberwocky which looked like the world’s ugliest dog with wings, electrical breath and an attitude.

The problems were mainly story issues. The framing sequence is coherent, but poorly explained in pieces (and never explained in others). The back story of what happened in Wonderland in the intervening 10 years is barely mentioned (except for some broad brush strokes), so people familiar with the original story will be extremely confused on how things moved from Wonderland to the current setting.

The 3-D, like most of the other recent 3-D movies, was amazing. The final image really looked like it was out in the theater. I would recommend this movie, for Tim Burton’s design’s, Helena Bonham Carter’s deliciously wicked Red Queen and the amazing 3-D effects. It doesn’t look like it would be worth getting on DVD since you would lose the 3-D effects and the story isn’t strong enough for repeat viewings.