“Alice in Wonderland” is everything you would expect from the collaboration of Tim Burton, Johnny Depp and, of course, Lewis Carroll. These three possess a direct pipeline to the subconscious that would keep the rest of us up at night, but watching them from the sidelines is a lot of fun.

Johnny Depp has a smile that leaves you wondering if the accepted norms of reality have ever applied to him. Watching him, as the Mad Hatter, march across a banquet table, indifferent to the rubble he is creating out of some very elegant china, to merrily greet a perplexed Alice (Mia Wasikowska) would have left Lewis Carroll himself nodding in approval—orange hair and all.

The premise of the plot is clever. Instead trudging back through a story we all know so well, Burton pushes Alice ahead in time. In the film, she’s grown up and about to be pressured into an engagement that everyone wants but her. A timely escape is offered by a familiar rabbit who leads her to a burrow and, well, we know what happens next.

Alice’s fall is beautifully rendered. It’s the kind of thing Burton does so well: blending a thrill ride with the trappings of a bad dream. By the time Alice is picking herself up off the floor in a room full of locked doors and a key on the table, Burton has found the shadows that other productions of “Alice” had—to their detriment—scrubbed clean. Any telling of a Lewis Carroll story needs its dark corners. The power of his whimsy came from its lack of censorship; craziness and menace were given their chance to join the fun. Burton gets this and Johnny Depp does, too. Depp proves that he is a perfect choice for the Mad Hatter. Like Edward Norton, he has the ability make you doubt his sanity, but unlike Norton, he can make you feel good about it.

While “Alice” is everything you would expect from these untethered geniuses, it is also something less. There’s a fourth player in this film: Walt Disney Studios, that prim hall monitor of family entertainment. Strip away the visual and acting flourishes and the script is an earnest Disney morality tale.

When Alice arrives in Wonderland (now called Underland), the place is in the grips of hard times. The Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) has wrested control of the countryside and it looks a little like Middle-earth after the Orcs have had their way. The odd folk we remember from the book are in need of a champion and it is up to Alice to find her “muchness” and be that champion. All well and good, I suppose, but the effect of Alice’s search for inner-muchness is to put a leash on Burton’s inner-gonzo and diminish Depp’s attempts to energize the film. As good as Depp is in “Alice” his performance doesn’t have the same outlaw spirit as his Jack Sparrow.

“Alice” plays like the fallout of a custody arrangement: Tim Burton owns the visuals but Disney owns the script.
Fortunately, nobody owns Helena Bonham Carter and she steals the show. While Depp may embody the Mad Hatter, Bonham Carter captures the zany spirit of the book itself. The cheerily self-possessed madness of the Red Queen makes you hunger for every line she delivers (“I need a pig here!”)—no matter how small.

Like that tardy rabbit, the perfect “Alice in Wonderland” proves elusive prey for Tim Burton, but it is often exhilarating—especially when Helena Bonham Carter commands the screen—to watch him give chase.

Directed by Tim Burton
Rated PG
*** (Three Stars)