I never read either of Lewis Carroll's Alice books, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland or Through The Looking Glass, and yet I feel like I know these characters. I guess that's what happens when a work of fiction embeds itself this deeply into the culture — the details become detached from their source and float like a Cheshire Cat through our imaginations. Since I'm ignorant of the source material, I have no idea how the Alice purists are going to regard Tim Burton's new 3D version of the story. The director has rejected Carroll's original structure (reportedly because he thought it was too much "about a girl wandering around from one character to another" and wanted it to seem more like a story), and pasted on a narrative about warring sisters, glorious castles, a mighty dragon that requires slaying and a climactic battle for that slaying to take place. But before you yell "spoiler!" please try and understand that I'm not ruining anything, since the movie goes out of its way about 25 minutes in to tell you exactly what's going to happen.
This article appears in Mar 3-9, 2010.