It’s no surprise that the curious world that Lewis Carroll created in 1865 with his book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, would be would be right down Tim Burton’s rabbit hole. The visionary director has a talent for taking classic tales such as this and recreating them in glorious Burtonvision™. And as with everything he does, it comes with a twist. Or two.

Alice (Mia Wasikowska) is a pretty nineteen year old, attending a garden party, which unbeknownst to her, is actually in her honour. She later discovers that a suitor of hers is going to propose that very day; however, she’s distracted by the sight of a white rabbit running around the grounds. Her curiosity gets the better of her as she attempts to follow it. It soon disappears down a rabbit hole, as does Alice soon after, when she gets too close to it.

Landing with a bump, she soon realises that she’s about as far away from the garden party as she could possibly get – Underland. Here, many of the creatures can talk, as demonstrated when they keeping asking her if she’s the Alice. Convinced they have her confused with someone else, Alice looks to return to her own world. But the longer she spends in this peculiar place, the greater sense of déjà vu she gets; and then it dawns on her, the reason that everything is so eerily familiar is because she dreamed of this place in her childhood.

With the evil Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) ruling the land with a maniacal tyranny, Alice starts to believe that maybe she is the Alice they’re all expecting, and perhaps she has a destiny to follow in this world after all.

As you would expect from someone of Burton’s calibre, the world he has created looks impressive enough. Not only that, it also feels like a seamless cohesion between the CGI and live action material, making the environment, with all its weird and wonderful characters, highly believable.

He’s spot on with the casting too; Depp in particular gives an extra-dimension (on top of the 3D one, that is) to his portrayal of the Mad Hatter, who appears to be suffering from a genuine mental illness. Carter also impresses as the Red Queen, although her performance echoes that of Miranda Richardson’s Queen Liz from Blackadder II a little too closely.

It’s Wasikowska who he gets the most out of however, with a superb performance as the teenaged Alice. Although she’s been acting for a while, this is her first leading role which she carries off with elegant aplomb.

Burton makes a serious wrong turn however with the script. It’s all very well making a darker Wonderland – which everyone expects at the hands of Burton – but he plays with it a bit too much, to the point where he’s actually made an unwelcome hybrid film: Alice in Narnia.

His version of Alice includes a completely unnecessary good vs. evil plot. The problem is, there is no conflict whatsoever. The Red Queen is depicted as evil, and she may well be a piece of work, but there’s no sense of history between her and the White Queen (Anne Hathaway). And the only thing that suggests that the White Queen may be a better monarch is that she wears white and has a nice smile.

The biggest disappointment however is the battle between Alice and the Jabberwocky. Alice, in her shiny armour, fights the evil beast, reducing this highly creative tale to the seen-it-all-before level delivered in recent Hobbit-ry and Narnia-dom. Of all the directions to take it, Burton – of all people - inexplicably takes the film in the wrong one.

To make matters worse, to act as a full stop to Danny Elfman’s immaculate score, the audience is treated to a track by Avril Lavigne at the end. It’s about as jarring as things can get and simply doesn’t belong anywhere near a film of this kind, or any other for that matter.

And yes, it’s yet another film in the now de rigueur that is 3D. And once again, it doesn’t add anything special; the rabbit hole scene is impressive, but it can’t help but feel like a tech demo. Tim Burton more than anyone should realise that 3D is not the new black. Still, they’ll need something to sell those 3D TV’s that are looming ominously on that their 2D horizon.

The story of Alice in Wonderland is one of imagination, charm and yes, wonder; Burton has certainly created a spectacle, but at the expense of the core material. There’s no denying its rich with characters, but by over-tinkering with the story, it feels like there’s not much for them to do.

Despite a glossy finish, instead of wonderment, audiences may well be left wondering what all the fuss was about. Alice and Co quite frankly deserved better than this flashy albeit shallow experience. If only Burton would’ve stuck to the original book, adorned with the label ‘read me’.