Alice in Wonderland (2010)

Here's the thing about Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland: it's undeniably there. Every frame is packed with swirling visuals, exaggerated costumes, and a hyper-saturated dreamscape that announces itself at every turn. But "undeniably there" is about the kindest thing I can say about it. Watching it, I kept thinking of a theme park ride designed by a goth teenager. Impressive in a technical, overwhelming kind of way. Not particularly fun to actually be on.

I wanted to like it. I really did. Lewis Carroll's source material is genuinely strange and genuinely brilliant, and Burton felt like a natural fit on paper. A filmmaker drawn to outsiders and oddities, handed one of literature's most beloved celebrations of nonsense and imagination? It should've been perfect. Instead, from the moment Alice floats down that rabbit hole in a glass case while sipping tea, something feels deeply, persistently off.

The problem is the story they've decided to tell. This isn't really Carroll's Alice at all. It's a jumbled "franchise-ready" fantasy about a chosen one, a magic sword, and a prophecy that wouldn't look out of place in a generic studio blockbuster. Where's the nonsense? The logic-defying wit? The playful absurdity that made the original so enduring? All of it has been swapped out for a hero's journey with no soul, no stakes, and no sense of genuine wonder. The madness has been industrialised.

Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter is pure performance art: twitching, wide-eyed, drowning in green paint and mood swings. It's strange, yes. But weirdness for its own sake doesn't make a film interesting. It just makes it exhausting. There's a difference between unsettling and odd for odd's sake, and this version of the Hatter never finds it. He's a collection of tics in search of a character.

The supporting cast is genuinely stacked. Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Crispin Glover. On paper, that's exciting. In practice, they're all trapped inside caricatures, shouting over each other across CGI landscapes that never feel real or lived-in. The effects are polished, sure, but they're oppressive. Too bright, too busy, too much. There's no breathing room, no silence, no moment where the film just lets you feel something. It's all noise and colour and motion, and none of it lands emotionally.

Compare that to something like Corpse Bride, where Burton managed to create a genuinely melancholic, imaginative world that felt both weird and emotionally true. That film trusted its own quieter moments. This one can't sit still long enough to earn them. And if you want to see how Carroll's world can be rendered with real charm, the Alice in Wonderland (1951) Disney animation is proof that you don't need a hundred million pounds of CGI to capture what makes Wonderland actually wonderful.

What this film fundamentally misunderstands is what makes Alice enduring. It's not the madness. It's the mind behind it. Carroll's genius was in the logic beneath the absurdity, the sharp wit underneath the nonsense. This version has neither. It's all surface, all style, no substance. A film so desperate to look interesting that it forgot to actually be interesting.

There are flashes of Burton's visual flair, moments where a composition or a design choice reminds you why he was hired in the first place. But flashes aren't enough. As a complete film, this is a misfire, and a frustrating one, because the ingredients were all there. Two stars, and that's being generous.

Rating: ★★½  | Year: 2010  | Watched: 2025-08-07

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Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Stream: Disney Plus
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi

Watch in the US
Stream: Disney Plus
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US

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Related on Movies With Macca

More from Tim Burton: Corpse Bride (2005)
More from the 2010s: Wonder (2017) · Beautiful Boy (2018) · The Witch (2015) · What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
More family: Alice in Wonderland (1951) · Wonder (2017) · Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anastasia (1997)
More fantasy: Viy (1967) · Alice in Wonderland (1951) · Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025)