Apple has the first full trailer for Tim Burton’s 3-D redo of “Alice in Wonderland,” and while we’re pretty sure we don’t remember this many dragons or CGI armies in the original book (seriously, that huge castle seems to have come straight from Peter Jackson’s trilogy), it’s certainly an improvement on the teaser. It doesn’t seem to be as centered around Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter as the first version (although, to be fair, it doesn’t really seem to be focused around Mia Wasikowska’s Alice either – she barely features), instead focusing on Burton’s vision of Wonderland, and of some of the supporting characters.
It does offer a better look at The Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry), The Red Queen (Helena Bonham-Carter), The Knave of Hearts (Crispin Glover) and The White Rabbit (Michael Sheen), as well as the first look at the March Hare (Paul Whitehouse). The effects are undeniably impressive, and we like the character design for the right part – just the right side of stylized. The plot, as expected, takes more of a “Return to Oz” approach to the story, featuring Alice returning to a darker Wonderland, although, again, we don’t see much of it here.
While definitely not speaking for everyone at The Playlist, this writer found “Sweeney Todd” to be something of a return to form for Tim Burton, and certainly his most substantial film since “Ed Wood.” There’s nothing here to suggest that this is anything other than the usual production-design-over-substance approach we’ve seen from the director previously (and we worry that the 3-D approach will only play to his worse instincts), but we’d be delighted to be wrong.