“Alice in Wonderland”

by Jake Coyle, AP Entertainment Writer

Alice has grown - not by "drink me" potion or "eat me" cake - into a 19-year-old girl in Tim Burton's adaptation of Lewis Carroll's classic tale. Working from Linda Woolverton's very Hollywood adaptation, Burton shifts the story from a child Alice to a near-adult Alice (the startlingly promising Mia Wasikowska). This is Alice's second journey down the rabbit hole, though she doesn't recall the first. This time is less "Who-o-o are you-o-o?" self-discovery, but a formulaic (if madcap) tale of proving oneself. One misses the light wit and the "simple and loving heart of her childhood" from Carroll's book. Burton's film is whimsical and several moments glimmer - the big slobbering tongue of a Bandersnatch, the tweaky March Hare - but it's heavy with the dread of Danny Elfman's score and the impersonal rebooting of Alice as dragon-slayer. Helena Bonham Carter is brilliant as the thin-skinned and bigheaded Red Queen. Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter is rootless but entertaining. The Cheshire Cat, voiced by Stephen Fry, feels like a bow made out of courtesy. No, this is a dog's movie: Baynard the Bloodhound is one of the finer movie mutts in some time. PG for fantasy action-violence involving scary images and situations, and for a smoking caterpillar. 109 minutes.

Two stars out of four.

"Brooklyn's Finest"

by David Germain, AP Movie Writer

Director Antoine Fuqua uses a sledgehammer to pound home the irony in the title of this drama about cops who are anything but fine at their jobs. Fuqua rounded up a fine cast - Richard Gere, Don Cheadle, Wesley Snipes and the director's "Training Day" co-star Ethan Hawke. Yet for all its fine performances and solid production values, the film is a bloody mess, largely because of the body count. Fuqua kills off lots of people in nasty ways with the remorseless glee of a cruel boy torturing insects. The movie centers on three Brooklyn cops - a burned-out patrolman (Gere), a murderously corrupt narcotics detective (Hawke) and a stressed-out undercover man (Cheadle) playing drug dealer under the nose of a crime kingpin (Snipes). The decent supporting cast features Lili Taylor, Ellen Barkin and Will Patton. But the movie is relentlessly bleak and barbarous, Fuqua grinding viewers down through his cavemen-with-badges depiction of police work. R for bloody violence throughout, strong sexuality, nudity, drug content and pervasive language. 133 minutes.

Two stars out of four.