Disney has for a second time re-done Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” but rather than paying attention to the book’s whimsical attributes like the studio’s original film in the 50’s, the Disney team let Tim Burton bring out the book’s dark side with this new incarnation.

First off, Tim Burton’s rendition of Lewis Carroll’s classic is not essentially just one of the two books in the series, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” or “Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There.” This time the film fuses them both, adding a little Burton twist. Neither of the books had a real story arc, rather just lists of events, so Tim Burton basically created a story that was influenced by the two books and poems by Carroll that existed in the “Wonderland universe.”

This film follows up more from the first movie, not the book; Alice Kingsley played by Mia Wasikowska, is now 19 years old and is betrothed to a young bureaucrat named Hamish. A white rabbit in a waist coat distracts Alice, and she eventually escapes falling into yet another rabbit hole which takes her back into the realm of “Wonderland,” which happens to be a false name that Alice gave to the strange world–this time the land is called “Underland.” Alice re-meets old friends from the original Disney movie who are attempting figure out if she is “The right Alice.” As the new plot unfolds Alice is informed that she must slay the Red Queens Guardian, the “Jabberwocky” on Frabjous Day. Incidentally the only way Alice can slay the Jabberwocky is to use the “Vorpal sword” which is hidden away inside the Red Queen’s castle.

The trailers for the new “Alice in Wonderland” film led the audience to believe that Tim Burton was going to completely base the story around Johnny Depp’s character The Mad Hatter since the two have a good friendship and Depp has been in more then a few of Burton’s movies. However Depp was very seldom seen. In fact, the Red Queen who is the main antagonist was much more frequent than the Hatter. All in all the trailers gave the film a bad image, including the worst acted out scenes, only including two or three of the central characters, and not clearly explaining anything about the story.

But don’t let that fool you, “Alice in Wonderland” is a fantastic film. It may not be the next Disney classic but it is definitely worth the ten bucks.

Unlike many other 3D movies, this one won’t make the viewer want to keel over or hurl. The 3D actually contributed to quality of the film. The new Real3D doesn’t feel in your face or over-dramatic, but blends with the movie. There aren’t just a few scenes that really need the glasses that feel absolutely ridiculous, the whole film is in 3D and fits together seamlessly.

Tim Burton pulls “Alice in Wonderland” completely out of nowhere, and what may have looked like a complete disaster turned into a good two hours of entertainment. The movie is great, not perfect by any means, but the bang is definitely worth the buck.