LEWIS Carroll s children s classic gets the Tim Burton treatment as ALICE IN WONDERLAND (PG) goes goth. Burton regulars Johnny Depp (Mad Hatter) and Helena Bonham Carter (Red Queen) are joined by a cast of big names including Stephen Fry (Cheshire Cat),

LEWIS Carroll's children's classic gets the Tim Burton treatment as ALICE IN WONDERLAND (PG) goes goth.

Burton regulars Johnny Depp (Mad Hatter) and Helena Bonham Carter (Red Queen) are joined by a cast of big names including Stephen Fry (Cheshire Cat), Anne Hathaway (White Queen), Michael Sheen (White Rabbit), Alan Rickman (the Caterpillar), Matt Lucas (Tweedledum and Tweedledee), Paul Whitehouse (March Hare, pictured right), Timothy Spall, Lindsay Duncan, and even Barbara Windsor (as the Dormouse).

Australian Mia Wasikowska stars as the 19-year-old Alice, returning to the magical world of her childhood adventure and reuniting with her old friends.

Burton says: "As a movie, it's always been about a passive little girl wandering around a series of adventures with weird characters. There's never any kind of gravity to it.

"The attempt with this was to take the idea of those stories and shape them into something that's not literal from the book but keeps the spirit of it."

Depp says he is a huge fan of the book: "It's such a beast in terms of invention, of literary achievement. It's as brilliant and as fresh and as new and as interesting today as it was then."

He adds: "I truly believe that Lewis Carroll would be ecstatic because the movie is done with such respect and is rooted deeply in the original material."

And of his character, Depp says: "I always saw the Hatter as kind of tragic.

"He's a victim in a lot of ways.

" The mercury has certainly taken its toll, but there's a tragic element to his past in this particular version that weighs pretty heavily on the character.