Just like Lewis Carroll, the man who penned "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" in 1865, director Tim Burton has genius vision.
Unite these two giants, as Disney does in its 3-D gem "Alice in Wonderland," and daring cinematic whimsy emerges that is driven by just one law: The fun house rules!
The film is a character-rich spectacle that proves more satisfying than "Avatar." Burton takes liberties with Carroll's tale, some of which will likely infuriate "Alice" purists.
Yet, even with these fanciful tweaks Burton never makes Alice or her curious allies in Wonderland slaves to a big, honking bag of CGI tricks – thanks to a finely-tooled script by Linda Woolverton ("The Lion King," "Beauty and the Beast").
Hookah-smoking caterpillars. Cats with disembodied voices and serpentine smiles poofing through air. A Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) with a taste for steamy tea and smoking hot dance steps.
Outlandish fancy drips off the screen here the way that blood trickles down the fangs of the evil Jabberwocky, the frightful dragon that Alice must slay to save Wonderland's whacky inhabitants.
But there's more.
A dark, threatening sense of subversiveness curls across this gorgeous 3-D world. It also ignites rebelliousness in Alice's eyes each time she tests her will against other people's wishes.
As Burton's extravaganza opens, 7-year-old Alice awakens from a recurring nightmare filled with white rabbits and a screeching queen (Helena Bonham Carter) who wants to lop off everybody's head.
"Have I gone bonkers?" the child asks her doting father, her saucer-sized eyes filled with worry.
"Yes," he replies. "But don't worry. All the best people are."
Springing ahead some 13 years, Alice (Mia Wasikowska) is now a young woman full of spirit and imagination -- just the thing that makes Victorian lords and ladies very nervous.
Dragged unknowingly to her own engagement party, Alice stands before a herd of pasty gentry, all of them watching as some snotty-nosed aristocrat (Leo Bill) proposes marriage.
"I need a moment," Alice stutters and runs, leaving her sensible betters gasping at such insanity.
Yet, crazy is as crazy does in Burton's romp, one that pushes this questioning heroine to find her own voice and listen to it before it's too late.
'Alice' a triumph of human spirit and 3-D artistry
From start to finish, "Alice" transports us in ways that Carroll himself would have applauded.
Creeping down on our skins like melting ice on a hot summer's day, "Alice in Wonderland" is impossibly decadent and beautiful. Frankly, it's one epic-sized hallucination that I don't want to end.
And it belongs to Depp and Wasikowska.
With his flaming orange hair and crazy green eyes, Depp's Mad Hatter is as outlandishly awesome as it gets in Hollywood.
A cross between a lisping Vincent Price eating crumpets and a dangerous, brogue-spewing "Braveheart" swinging a mallet, Depp teeters on that line between mania and menace with wondrous glee.
Aussie actress Wasikowska almost steals the show from him as the film's 19-year-old leading lady.
Wasikowska doesn't just visit Alice. She makes her live, breathe, think and choose. At every instant you look into this actress's big, intense eyes and know the lights are on.
"Alice in Wonderland" might seem like a kiddies' tale dressed up with 21st-century trappings.
Don't be fooled.
At its very heart, "Alice" is all about the timeless quandary of reconnecting with one's "muchness." That inner, honest, one-of-a-kind sense of who we are.
This modern, empowered Alice stands at a singularly perilous moment in her life as Burton's dizzying dive down the rabbit hole begins.
She can either see her wondrous "muchness" soar or let it be squashed forever by those around here.
Given the choice, I'll take Burton's empowering trip down this rabbit hole any day.
Four stars out of four.
