I’m a big Tim Burton fan. I think his movies are a hoot, and I love his wild imagination.

But his latest, "Alice in Wonderland," was a raging disappointment.

Some critics harped on the fact that the plotline doesn’t hew to the Lewis Carroll classics and that it recasts Alice as a 19-year-old who is engaged in a struggle for independence that feels very 2010, despite the Victorian setting.

That didn’t bother me. What bothered me was the slack narrative drive and the dark, morose visuals. The place Alice goes is not Wonderland but Underland, and, boy, is it a depressing place to be. Dead plants, dark lighting, dastardly creatures.

Burton needs a strong storyline to rein in his wandering impulses, and this script certainly didn’t provide that. So the tale putters from scene to scene in the worst picaresque way.

As Helena Bonham Carter was barrelling her way through the movie as the big-headed queen who belts out, "Off with his head!" every few seconds, I laughed at how much she’s changed since we first saw her as the refined, reserved heroine in "A Room with a View" in 1985.

Although his accent frolicked all over the place (sometimes stopping in Scotland, sometimes stopping at some indeterminate country), Johnny Depp gave a charming performance as the Mad Hatter — a bit sweet, a bit loopy. He’s by far the best thing here. His look is arresting, too, with the neon-red fright wig of hair, the oversized green pupils, the makeup emphasizing his cheekbones.

A few more random thoughts about "Alice":

I couldn’t understand some of what was being said. Enunciation, people!

Anne Hathaway, you lost me. The actress flounced about as the White Queen, holding her hands up to the side of her shoulders and trying to act funny. Soooooo not funny.

Hey, look! It’s Crispin Glover! Hidden behind a scar, an eye patch, and a long wig, but still, there he was. And here we thought that Letterman appearance meant the end of his career.

I loved Tweedledee and Tweedledum and their expressions of perpetual befuddlement. Or maybe, watching this movie, I just related to the befuddlement. 

What was your reaction to "Alice in Wonderland"?