Alice in Wonderland
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures | Release Date: March 5, 2010 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
53
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 38 Critic Reviews
Positive:
18
Mixed:
16
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
The Hollywood ReporterMichael Rechtshaffen
A fantastical romp that proves every bit as transporting as that movie about the blue people of Pandora, his "Alice" is more than just a gorgeous 3D sight to behold. Read full review
90
Boxoffice MagazinePete Hammond
Tim Burton, plus Alice, plus 3D equals an unforgettable, one-of-a-kind movie experience. It will clean up. Read full review
88
USA TodayClaudia Puig
When it comes to 3-D visual splendors, give me Wonderland over Pandora any day. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
If you can get past the craven concessions to formula, though, it’s rather underful--I mean, wonderful. Taking his cues from John Tenniel’s famous illustrations, Burton indulges his delight in disproportion. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill Goodykoontz
Carroll purists and freshman English majors may be aghast at the change in story, but for those who watched "Avatar" and marveled at the images but were left wanting by the wooden acting and tired story, "Alice" is a treat. Read full review
75
Orlando SentinelRoger Moore
Wonderland is equal parts Lewis Carroll and Grace Slick. It’s inspired by Carroll’s "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass," but also, apparently, by Slick’s psychedelic ‘60s anthem, “White Rabbit.” It’s a trip, man. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
"Alice" plays better as an adult hallucination, which is how Burton rather brilliantly interprets it until a pointless third act flies off the rails. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
The movie won't be for everyone -- it's a little rough for preteens, and it doesn't throw many laughs the audience's way -- but along with "Sweeney Todd," this is Burton's most interesting project in a decade Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
If there were truth-in-titling, Burton's movie rightly would be called "Alice in Narnia: With Stops at Disneyland, the Shire, Rohan, Naboo, and Oz." Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
This is still her (Wasikowska’s) picture. She’s its 10-foot tower, mysterious and brave and excited and withdrawn. Alice is the true magic in a Wonderland that’s mere movie magic – the happy surprise amidst everything we’ve come to expect. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
Burton finely balances excess and restraint to create an absorbing, visually rich world of his very own. Read full review
75
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike Scott
Burton's most imaginative film in some time. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
The movie carries a mild PG rating but may be too intense for younger children. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
A strangely passive film, dutifully ladling out its bits of filmic wizardry and expanding Lewis Carroll’s fantastical mythos in a promising new direction without any palpable sense of glee or verve. Read full review
63
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
The film is always fun, but as Carroll might have observed, it’s not much of a muchness. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Alice in Wonderland is curiously devoid of metaphors and allegories about a young woman on the cusp of adulthood, about to be engaged by arrangement to a loathsome toad of a man she can barely stomach. The lack of psychological subtext is hugely disappointing. Read full review
63
New York PostLou Lumenick
Depp's nonsense-spouting Mad Hatter, decked out in a red fright wig and possibly more makeup than Michael Jackson, is an unlikely resistance leader. Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Still, even Disney and a PG rating can't bury Burton's subversive wit. Like Carroll, he's a master at dressing up psychic wounds in fantasy. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
It tends to get lost in its own delirium, which will enchant some and drive others bonkers. Read full review
60
EmpireAngie Errigo
Sadly Lewis lite and not without flaws but this is as Burtonesque as one could wish for, a real treat for fans of his twisted imagination and great British character actors. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
The best adaptations have found ways to put a personal stamp on the familiar stories. Others have simply reproduced an Alice facsimile in the image of their own era. Surprisingly, Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland belongs to the latter camp. That doesn’t necessarily make it a bad movie, just another frustratingly impersonal one from a director who once had trouble compacting his personality down to movie size. Read full review
58
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
The movie is a decidedly mixed bag, in part, because of the equally pronounced disparities between Burton and Carroll – and between Burton and Disney, for that matter. Read full review
50
VarietyTodd McCarthy
For all its clever design, beguiling creatures and witty actors, the picture feels far more conventional than it should; it's a Disney film illustrated by Burton, rather than a Burton film that happens to be released by Disney. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
In the film's rather humdrum 3-D, the place doesn't dazzle — it droops. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe Williams
Here's a riddle: What's Alice in Wonderland without wonder? It's a beloved character landing in the rubble of wrong-headed revisionism. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Where Burton and his screenwriter, Linda Woolverton, go astray is turning this new 3-D version - a sequel, really, about a grown Alice returning to the psychic dreamworld of her childhood - into a fantasy adventure that looks like every other CGI epic out there. Read full review
50
SalonStephanie Zacharek
In the end, Alice in Wonderland comes off as manufactured instead of dreamy. Burton delivers all the wonder money can buy; what's missing is the wonder it can't. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
As usual with Burton, the visuals are much better than the story, and Carroll’s characters are richly realized--especially Tweedledum and Tweedledee, poster children for juvenile obesity, and the raving Red Queen, played with razor-sharp timing by Helena Bonham Carter. Read full review
40
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
Like more than one recent movie, Alice seems a trailer for a Wonderland computer game--and it is. The final battle is clearly designed for gaming. So, it would seem, is the character of actualized as well as action Alice. Read full review
40
Time OutKeith Uhlich
Unlike Carroll’s perversely idealized protagonist, Burton’s Alice is just another anachronistic feminist tearing down Victorian patriarchal norms. Even her—[shudder]—Avril Lavigne–blared theme song is a skin-deep grrrl-power accessory. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleKimberley Jones
The first act is very nearly unbearable, leaden and doomy and generically plotted. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
It has its successful moments but it's surprisingly inert overall, more like a Burton derivative than something he actually did himself. Read full review
40
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
Busy, garish and periodically amusing. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
The most surprising thing about Alice in Wonderland is its general lack of surprise. Read full review
30
SlateDana Stevens
A film adaptation should, of course, treat its source material as inspiration rather than dogma. But did Burton have to get the books so ENTIRELY wrong? Read full review
25
ObserverChristopher Rosen
It might be time for Johnny Depp and Tim Burton to start thinking about seeing other people. Alice in Wonderland, their seventh film together, is so thoroughly soul-deadening and laborious that the prospect of an eighth collaboration feels like the sword of Damocles. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleAmy Biancolli
Its single biggest failing - an affront to Lewis Carroll and the charms of nonsense literature - is that it makes sense. Read full review
25
PremiereJohn DeVore
A charmless, vandalized version of a classic. Read full review
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