Underland

Tim Burton’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’ uses all his best tricks: visual splendor, darkness and Jonny Depp. But The Salon asks if the famed director has fallen down a rabbit hole. “It’s disappointing enough that a movie whose title contains the word ‘wonder’ should hold so little of it. It’s even more disheartening that that movie should come from Tim Burton, a filmmaker whose imaginativeness — working in tandem with his dark heart – – has given moviegoers so much pleasure over the years that even at the relatively tender age of 51, he’s earned his own Museum of Modern Art retrospective. ‘Alice in Wonderland’ is hardly a total disappointment: Burton has put the expected level of care into its production and character design, and the picture is a far more low-key affair than either of his last two live-action films, ‘Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street’ and ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.’ Unlike the former, ‘Alice’ doesn’t groan under the weight of thunderous pretentiousness, and unlike the latter, its garishness is, at least, of the muted sort.”