Alice au pays des merveilles

Tim Burton a fait le pari de miser sur une quasi-inconnue - Mia Wasikowska - pour camper son Alice. La jeune femme se tire bien d'affaire, sans plus, dans un rôle somme toute assez ennuyeux.

Bien qu'Alice in Wonderland possède l'essence de Carroll, s'y reconnaît tout aussi bien la signature de Burton, qui s'amuse avec maestria avec la technologie mise à sa disposition. Tant dans l'amalgame des formes luxuriantes et des couleurs éblouissantes que dans les traits de caractère des personnages, la griffe burtonesque se déploie avec panache. Rarement voit-on deux imaginaires faits l'un pour l'autre réunis dans un spectacle aussi féerique que somptueux.

Le résultat n'est pas une immersion à la Avatar - ce n'est pas le but de l'exercice - mais une glorification du bancal, de la disproportion et de l'étrange. Le « faux » est ici mis dans un écrin, est tendu aux spectateurs qui ne perdent jamais de vue la « vraie » nature d'Underland; et a été fabriqué dans un matériau au départ destiné aux enfants.

Burton has also lost his muchness - that essential quality that made his films fascinating 15 years ago - or accumulated way, way more of it than any man needs. Because "too much" is what Alice in Wonderland is in nearly every way - too much color, too much scenery, too much busy plot, too much exposition. The only thing there's not too much of is characters worth caring about - in fact, there's none of those at all.

This filmmaker takes advantage of how indelibly those images are already rooted in our heads and uses them to give his tale a rich and layered history which we know without him telling it. It's the right move, the only way a movie like this ever really could have worked, and because of it, work this Alice in Wonderland does.

It all seemed like such a natural fit - Burton and Lewis Carroll, Depp as the key component in fiction's most eccentric tea party, and 3D put at the service of a story offering unlimited visual possibilities. Not that it's gone all wrong; not entirely. But 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.

Mr. Depp's strenuously flamboyant turn embodies the best and worst of Mr. Burton's filmmaking tendencies even as the actor brings his own brand of cinematic crazy to the tea party.

With those battle scenes in place to please the boys, Burton and company have taken special care to provide pictures of Alice as a warrior princess in full Joan of Arc armor as a female empowerment icon for the girls in the audience.

Alice in Wonderland is a charmless, vandalized version of a classic directed without vision. The tragedy here is the director in question is a creative force who possesses a peerless imagination. Let's hope the marriage between Tim Burton and Disney is short lived.

What is often forgotten in the more sanitized and sweet versions of Alice in Wonderland is that Carroll's story is essentially about growing up, which entails some dark experiences. Burton's distinctive cinematic style makes this eclectic fantasy - infused with both dark and light - a dynamic marriage of original material and modern filmmaker.