Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is great entertainment, a little scary for the little ones **** 4 Stars [Get $10 off special offer good until June 15th]

By Gabrielle Pantera

A grown-up Alice returns to the rabbit hole for further adventures

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Gosh!TV) 6/6/2010 - “I can remember reading the books when I was a kid but it was a super condensed version,” say Alice in Wonderland star Johnny Depp. “Then, obviously, the Disney animated version took over. But because the stories are so episodic, abstract and all over the place, what I remember more than anything is just the characters and how those characters stick with you for some reason. Even people who haven’t read the book know all the characters.”

Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland features a grown-up Alice, played by Mia Wasikowska, who returns to Wonderland for some unfinished business and to find out who she really is. Alice doesn’t remember being there before, but it all seems very familiar. As the story progresses she gets her “muchness” back she’d lost when she grew up. In the end she’s a stronger person for it.

“In terms of the look of the character, some of the early stuff that Tim and I spoke about actually came right out of the book,” says Depp. “There were these weird little cryptic bits that Lewis Carroll dropped in there. Things like I’m investigating things that begin with the letter ‘M’. That, on its own, was intriguing. You go through Alice and you go through The Looking Glass and there’s never an answer for it.”

“So, what I did was to start doing research on hatters,” says Depp. “I found this thing called The Hatter’s Disease, basically… because they use this very toxic substance to glue the hats together, which involved a lot of mercury and ended up poisoning them heavily. The poison would manifest itself in different ways. Some would develop Tourettes style syndrome, some would develop a personality disorder… some would get darker. So, I just thought, yeah. There was also an orange tint to the actual stuff, which is where all the orange bits come from.”

“In terms of my approach to the character, I was just trying to find those places inside, to go from extreme sides of personality,” says Depp. “So, one minute you’re at full capacity rage, the next minute you’ve dropped to some kind of horrific tailspin of fear, and then you go to some great height of levity. So, that was what I tried to do within the scenes and whenever I could find the right moments for it.”

“The combination of the 135-year-old best seller Alice in Wonderland, Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, Disney and 3D make this an irresistible and ‘must see’ movie event,” says producer Richard Zanuck.

Alice In Wonderland” marks the seventh collaboration between Tim Burton and Johnny Depp since they first worked together on Edward Scissorhands. “It’s amazing,” says Depp, “having worked with Tim coming up on 20 years, I’ve had the opportunity to see him grow. He’s so unique and so special and such a brilliant filmmaker. Anything Tim wants me to do is a real honor.”

The White Queen, played by Anne Hathaway, appears to be all sweetness and light, beneath the surface there’s a hint of darkness to her character. “She comes from the same gene pool as the Red Queen,” says Hathaway. “She really likes the dark side, but she’s so scared of going too far into it that she’s made everything appear very light and happy. But she’s living in that place out of fear that she won’t be able to control herself.”

To play the Red Queen, Underland’s petulant ruler, Burton turned to real-life partner Helena Bonham Carter, the Oscar-nominated British actress. “She doesn’t really rule through any kind of justice or fairness, but through terror,” says Bonham Carter. “I chop off people’s heads. That’s my solution to everything.”

“Helena is a fearless actress,” says producer Joe Roth. “She is unafraid of being this incredibly demonic character. She is quite an ogre. What’s funny about it is, she does it in a kind of baby-doll way.”

While Bonham Carter’s head is digitally increased to around twice its normal size for the final film, the actress still had to endure a daily visit to the makeup chair to be  transformed into the Red Queen. “It took about three hours,” she says. “But I love being Royal. The big hazard was I lost my voice pretty much every day by 10 o’clock, because she shouts a lot. ‘Off with his head! Off with her head!’ It’s quite exhausting losing your temper all the time.”

Director Tim Burton began his career at Walt Disney as a concept and in-between artist in 1979, working on the animated features “The Fox and the Hound” and “The Black Cauldron.” This year aside from directing “Alice in Wonderland” and producing the animated feature “9”, he released “The Art of Tim Burton,” a 430-page book comprising more than 40 years of his personal and project artwork. In November, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) opened an extensive exhibit of his work. The exhibit will tour Melbourne, Australia and Toronto, Canada, later this year.

Tim Burton’s epic fantasy adventure Alice In Wonderland is Disney’s fourth biggest film of all time. The Blu-ray disc include nine bonus features that take viewers deeper into the famous Rabbit Hole, exploring more of the world of Wonderland, its iconic characters and the making of the film. The making of the Futterwacken Dance takes a look inside the world of the Mad Hatter and Johnny Depp’s transformation.

From the trailers you may think Alice will be very dark, but it’s a delight and visually pleasing. The story and plot move along at a good clip and you stay engaged through out the entire move. There are few dark moments, but they are action scenes that move quickly. Defiantly one to get for your Blu-ray collection.

Alice in Wonderland

• Disney 3-Disc Blu-ray Combo Pack
• Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy
• Release date: June 1, 2010
• Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment
• Cost: Blu-ray set $44.99, 1-Disc Blu-ray $39.99, 1-Disc DVD $29.99