Stars: Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Cripin Glover, Matt Lucas, and the voices of Michael Sheen, Alan Rickman, Barbara Windsor, Christopher Lee, Stephen Fry.
Running time: 108 mins
Rating: ★★★★

THE word Disney is in front of the title, which may confuse those who thought it was Lewis Carroll who wrote the Alice In Wonderland/Through The Looking Glass stories.

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It should really be Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland as the quirky director of such movies as Beetlejuice, Sweeney Todd, Sleepy Hollow and Charlie And The Chocolate Factory puts his own surreal stamp on proceedings. His Alice (young Australian Mia Wasikowska) is no wide-eyed little girl but – in the scenes that frame her trip “down Underland” – a 19-year-old about to get into a marriage that she doesn’t want to a man she doesn’t love.

Before you can say “looking glass” she’s following a white rabbit (voiced by Sheen) down a hole and is reunited with old friends from her earlier visit to Wonderland. They include the Mad Hatter (Depp), Tweedledum and Tweedledee (Lucas times two), Absolem the caterpillar (Rickman), the Dormouse (Windsor) and the Cheshire Cat (Fry).

Stories predict that she’s destined to slay the awesome Jabberwocky (Lee) when the creature is summoned up by the evil Red Queen (Bonham Carter).

The characters are conjured up by a variety of methods, using CG in some cases and makeup/ costume in others. As you’d expect from a visual magician like Burton, Underland and its residents are quite unlike anyone or anything you’ve seen before.

Wasikowska makes a feistier than usual Alice while Helena Bonham Carter is outstandingly mean, moody and magnificent as the Red Queen. Only Johnny Depp disappoints with a variety of accents and an over-eagerness to be offbeat.