It all looks typically Burtonesque with the gnarled trees and generally vivid otherworldliness. But the feeling is different. Alice keeps telling herself she is dreaming, but comes to realize she isn’t. There is a psychological underpinning to this telling of the story, about a Victorian era girl wanting to be more than marriageable chattel. Her quest is to find out who she is and what she can do. To that end, she must enter into the battle between the evil Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) and the good White Queen (Anne Hathaway.) The Red Queen has an enormous head and pretty much hates everything shouting “off with his head” with great frequency. The White Queen is more Buddhist, taking care not to harm any creature. The Queens are sisters and have been at war for a long time and the only way to stop the whole thing is for the good Queen to get her hands on the Vorpal Sword and have her champion slay the Jabberwock. (The wonderful nonsense poem The Jabberwocky is woven into the tale, though if you are not acquainted with it, I wonder how much fun you’d find the references to the “frabjous day” or the “frumious Bandersnatch”.) And guess who will be that champion who slays the dragon?

The more I think of this movie, the more it seems like a good idea that just doesn’t come across on film. As an updated Alice it is beautiful to look at, but it is more like a great mosaic where you can look close up at all the pieces and think how amazing it is that it all goes together, but then stand back and it is just a pretty picture. As for an audience, I am not sure who would be the target. I love odd movies and Johnny Depp and nonsense poems, but there was something not quite there about this Alice in Wonderland. It wasn’t dark enough or light enough. It was just kind of in between. I did not see the 3D version and that probably is pretty wonderful, but still the story is pretty light weight. Kids might like it for the eye candy, but sadly I would not recommend it for adults who appreciate Tim Burton for his usual dark fantasy and strange but interesting sense of story.

Forget Team Edward and Team Jacob. We’ve heard that director Tim Burton and star Johnny Depp are making a feature film version of the classic 1960s gothic TV soap opera Dark Shadows, and producer Graham King now confirms that the film will shoot in the fall, with Depp to play broody vampire Barnabas Collins.

“We’re actually going to shoot that film next September/October with Tim Burton and Johnny,” King said in a group interview Friday in Los Angeles, where he was promoting The Young Victoria.

Burton is still finishing post-production on Alice in Wonderland, which also stars Depp and opens March 5, 2010. King is already prepping production on Dark Shadows with screenwriters so that it is ready for Burton to shoot next fall.

“We’ve been working on the script a lot, even though he’s working on Alice,” King continued. “We’ve been given a script. John August wrote the first screenplay. We’re making some changes, but the film’s going to be in production, as I say, September or October of next year.”

Dark Shadows was a daytime soap opera on ABC from 1966 to 1971 featuring Jonathan Frid as Collins. NBC tried a weekly prime-time series reboot in 1991. The original was famous for its gothic tone and setting.

King said the Dark Shadows film would have something to say in the post-Twilight world of emo vampires, but wouldn’t spoil the new take. “This is going to be Tim Burton and Johnny doing a vampire movie, right?” King teased. Enough said.

Personally, I can’t wait.

In the meantime, you can catch up on the old ones. And boy are they fun! They’re so horrible, they’re great!

Dark Shadows: The Haunting of Collinwood

Dark Shadows: The Vampire Curse

I went thinking it was a Tim Burton movie, and he is credited as a producer, but it is directed by Shane Acker, who co-wrote the screenplay as well. Apparently, 9 started off as a short, for which Mr. Acker received an Oscar nomination and won the Student Academy Award (UCLA) in 2005. I’m not sure if there are many successful feature films expanded from shorts. I think it’s probably like trying to make a novel from a short story; sometimes the idea really deserves to be short. Which is not to say it is a bad film. But I am not sure it is appropriate for little kids as there is a lot of violence, war, death and destruction. And the story may not be something they (or many of the adults in the audience) can understand. Visually though, it is stunning. I would like to see the short to see where it began and how much of it is Tim Burton, because it feels quite Burtonesque. (Then again, that might just be the reason he got involved with it in the first place.)

Where it is really lacking though is the script. Burton usually makes films where you care about his quirky characters and are engaged in their story. This story is not all that original; it is kind of a Terminator meets Lord of the Rings meets some video game. And the characters are pretty underdeveloped. Sure it is a cartoon, but you can tell that the focus was on the visuals which are very impressive and the story was kind of given short shrift.

I would wait until it is out on DVD or on HBO. It really isn’t a must see.

Top shelf voice talents: Elijah Wood, Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau, John C. Reilly, Crispin Glover, Jennifer Connelly.