I generally like Tim Burtons films, full of imagination and spectacle and this is no exception.

Alice (Wasikowska - a spitting image of a young Paltrow) is now 19 and facing pressure to accept a marriage proposal when she falls down a hole into Wonderland which she vaguely remembers from her childhood dreams. Once there she discovers all is not right as the megalomaniac Red Queen (Bonham Carter) seeks control over the land, including her sister the ethereal White Queen (Hathaway). With the help of the not quite stable Hatter, played by Depp, Alice must gain the resolve to face the dreaded Jabberwocky and defeat the Red Queen.

The film holds a reasonable storyline and offers some delightful performances. Bonham Carters’ Red Queen undoubtedly steals the show with her bossiness and rage delivered with an acerbic tongue. Depp’s Mad Hatter suggests a once happy character now barely holding his sanity together. But as you might expect it’s really the CGI effects that sparkle with Wonderland lavishly imagined. The attention to detail is gorgeous from the gardens to the creatures that inhabit them, from the castles to their contents.

Despite the nice character turns the failure is in the character of Alice. You don’t really feel for her as protagonist nor believe in her. Wonderland is supposed to be a mirror of the pressures, people and expectations back “uptop” but it doesn’t quite work. Perhaps a bit less running around and some more character time with Alice would have helped. Burton gives lots of screen time to the Hatter which could have been better used to explore how Alice felt about things.

So a potentially great film you could watch repeatedly goes down to a B- : not bad, very watchable but leaving a slightly empty feeling. Although I saw the film in 2D, no amount of 3D is going to help with that I’m afraid.