Walking in a Burton ‘Wonderland’

USAToday, has another of their visually elaborate movie features, and this time Tim Burton’s ‘Wonderland’ gives them plenty of splashy artwork worthy of the complex layout. (Thanks to Kay for spotting the story.)

The traditional tale has been freshened with a blast of girl power, courtesy of writer Linda Woolverton (Beauty and the Beast). Alice, 17, attends a party at a Victorian estate only to find she is about to be proposed to in front of hundreds of snooty society types. Off she runs, following a white rabbit into a hole and ending up in Wonderland, a place she visited 10 years before yet doesn’t remember.

Among those who welcome her back is the Mad Hatter, a part tailor-made for Johnny Depp as he collaborates with Burton for the seventh time. “This character is off his rocker,” Zanuck says.

Aussie actress Mia Wasikowska, 19, best known for HBO’s In Treatment, has the coveted title role. “There is something real, honest and sincere about her,” Zanuck says. “She’s not a typical Hollywood starlet.”

It’s too bad the baroque design is already being described as “the usual Burton-esque ghoulishness” — as if consistent inventive flair and a signature style should be taken for granted. When environments as beautifully surreal as these can be called “usual” no wonder a lesser talent like Roland Emmerich has to blow shit up to get a reaction. You’ll find a couple more widescreen scene recreations after the cut.

A dark vision is just what Alice in Wonderland always needed. My earliest memories of its trippiness were pretty frightening. You can click on any of these photos to supersize them, but for the full immersive effect USAToday lets you go for a leisurely scroll around Wonderland, in zoomable panoramas.