Alice in Wonderland

In Tim Burton’s live-action/animated/3D Alice in Wonderland, the Alice who plunges down the rabbit hole is not so sure she’s fallen into the right dream, and the assorted creatures and caricatures she encounters in Wonderland (re-dubbed Underland here) are not so sure she’s the right Alice for the adventures they’re itching to run her through at least one more time. Here, she finds her way by getting lost, and the script tracks back toward Lewis Carroll’s original by embracing an assortment of parallel myths and tales. The Alice of Disney cartoons has been replaced by a young-adult Alice whose story tacitly rubs elbows with Joan of Arc, St. George and the dragon, the War of the Roses, Anne of Green Gables, etc. Mia Wasikowska fills in quite nicely as this avatar Alice, and she’s enhanced considerably by the various semi-familiar figures cavorting, and sometimes intruding, in her vicinity—the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), the White Queen (Anne Hathaway), the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) among others. Feather River Cinemas, Paradise Cinema 7 and Tinseltown. Rated PG