One would think that Tim Burton’s take on Alice in Wonderland would be a new delightfully quirky cult classic like "The Nightmare Before Christmas" or "Edward Scissorhands," but this movie is just as awful as "Mars Attacks" if not worse.

The movie is somewhat of a sequel to the animated "Alice in Wonderland." 13 years have passed since Alice first fell down the hole and now believes that the little that she does remember is a dream. While Alice is pondering if she should accept the proposal of Lord Ascot, Alice spots a rabbit in a blue waistcoat and follows him to the hole which leads her to Underworld. She is told that it is prophesized that a girl named Alice will take down the Jabberwocky relinquishing the crown from evil red queen and restoring the thrown to the white queen. On her quest she befriends the Blue Caterpillar (Alan Rickman) The Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) and the Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry).

A movie like this seems like it should be easy for Burton to put his own take on a piece of work that is already nonsensical and quirky, but the movie as a whole is bland and uninteresting. It’s like the "Wizard of Oz" if they took out the singing and sense of wonder.

Alice isn’t a particularly interesting or strong character; she’s just floating through the movie meeting other characters and talks about waking up from the dream that she thinks she’s in. I waited 20 minutes for The Mad Hatter to show up so that the movie would start to get interesting, but even he couldn’t save me from something this boring. Depp’s Mad Hatter is an amalgamation of other characters that we’ve seen before. At times, he’s like a sweet, less flamboyant Willy Wonka mixed with Edward Scissorhands with a lisp and a mouth full of spit and when it’s time to be courageous, he channels Captain Jack Sparrow with a Scottish accent. He’s quirky but really has nothing to offer. The talents of some great actors are wasted in this movie. I’m talking about you Alan Rickman and Christopher Lee.

With any Tim Burton film you must always comment on the way it looks. Tim Burton movies always look like you’re watching a dream with a plot and story but I felt that this movie was the complete opposite of visually striking. The movie certainly has Tim Burton’s signature gothic look but the visual effects look very cheap. Whatever happened to actual physical sets built by set designers with tools, wood and some paint? This is a Disney movie; they own everything and they certainly have enough money to give a movie with high profile stars and a high profile director a decent visual effects budget.

The March release date of this movie should have sent up a red flag about how bad this movie is. Studios don’t put out good movies at this time of year. This is when a studio will release movies that are awful or mediocre. Alice in Wonderland falls under the awful category. It’s a predictable movie about a silly girl who goes to a silly place and makes friends with silly people. This movie is of the same caliber as a Disney Direct to DVD movie. It’s something that you put in the DVD player for a 5-year-old so you can get him to take a nap. Save yourself some time and money and buy something with more substance with your ten dollars.