Tim Burton’s new pseudo-sequel, “Alice in Wonderland,” is, at best, a mildly entertaining film for 6 year olds. What had the potential to be a marvelous follow-up to the magnificent books “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There” became a sorry mix of small-child appeal with Burton’s want for twistedly weird.

The first misstep came with the story itself. Maybe it was Disney’s influence, but the dark appeal of the Alice books was again glossed over so that little kids could convince their parents to spend inordinate amounts of money at their local cinema. Burton is renowned for his macabre approach to stories, and when the first mention of this movie came to light a few years ago, it was believed this would be much more akin to the video game “American McGee’s Alice.” The game was a dark tale set after “Through the Looking-Glass,” in which Alice’s family dies in a fire, leaving her as the only survivor. Alice attempts suicide due to pain, loss and survivor guilt, and is sent to a psychiatric ward. Ten years of staff and psychological abuse later, the White Rabbit returns, dragging her to a twisted, evil Wonderland ruled over by the Red Queen.

This new movie keeps the theme of the Red Queen ruling over a Wonderland that has been placed in a state of fear due to the constant death sentences of “Off with their head.” The psychology of the game and the logic-altering intricacies  have been ignored to make the movie more audience friendly and get that annoyingly wholesome PG rating.

This would be fine if it stuck to this notion of being more of a children’s movie, but instead the edges of dark are skirted just enough to inspire viewer interest and then every effort is attempted to ensure the Disney seal of “fun for the whole family” and add on a pointless happy ending of mediocrity.

The second mistake is in the increased role of the Mad Hatter, portrayed by the illustrious Johnny Depp. Due to love of the Hatter by audiences throughout the years, and Burton’s decision to have Depp be the star of every movie, someone along the writing chain decided the role should be a secondary hero to Alice. This would be like making a new “Star Wars” movie in which Boba Fett got as much screen time as Han Solo. Additionally, the Hatter is one of the main reasons the dark attempts look so wrong. Depp does an excellent job playing the crazed character, mixing ominous mutterings with a slightly dangerous gleam in his eye. In the interim, however, the Hatter’s actions are given background that dwarfs Alice’s story and leads up to his “funderwhack” dance of celebration at the end. I won’t say that this utterly superfluous dance was what ruined the movie for me, but it definitely made me curse out loud in a perfectly “blue” fashion and look warmly toward the exit as I waited for the movie to play out its utterly awful climax and ending.

The final bit of folly infecting this film fell with its stringing together of scenes from the original stories. Classic clips are cobbled together to craft what can only be described as a crappy creative process.

While it is marvelous to pay homage, substituting old ideas instead of new scenes was not only an obvious lack of effort, but cemented the notion that Disney doesn’t care about quality content but only whether the content is of a non-offensive persuasion. Basically, if it worked once, just spoon-feed the audience the same thing and they’ll never know the difference  — it’s almost insulting, really.

Despite all these terrible hiccups to the new and disastrously unimproved Alice, there are some definite upsides. Depp’s Hatter is spot-on in personality and degree of madness. Helena Bonham Carter is perfect as the Red Queen, never once breaking from the character’s need for overcompensation due to being a second-rate person. Mia Wasikowska’s Alice is either good or bad, depending on how Alice was supposed to come across: If Alice is supposed to be dull and sort of lost, then Wasikowska’s performance was fine; if she was supposed to be the more involved and inquisitive Alice of the books, then the Alice portrayal was very boring. The voice acting lent by Alan Rickman as the Blue Caterpillar is a saving grace  — but then Rickman in anything makes a movie better  — and Stephen Fry makes the Cheshire Cat appearances very welcome. To top it off, Anne Hathaway is superb as an ethereal White Queen, balancing nobility and sophistication with the realm of death and an ephemeral quality that lends her character a specter-esque feel that makes her beauty more appealing.

The movie also makes a clever reference to the original title of the first draft of the Alice story when it is pointed out Alice has been calling it Wonderland, when in Burton’s vision it is called Underland —  the original Alice was titled “Alice’s Adventures Under Ground.”

Bringing the movie back down again and again is the ridiculous 3-D fad unceremoniously crammed down audience’s throats and haphazardly slapped onto Burton’s mangled attempt at an Alice movie. This film would have looked fine, but the 3-D unnecessarily blurs backgrounds and truly takes away from the dark and sweeping beauty Burton could have granted Wonderland.

Final analysis: Don’t bother chasing this one down the rabbit-hole. Wait for a dollar theater or home video, and don’t be too surprised when you walk away shaking your head in disappointment at Burton’s misguided, uninteresting and essentially discombobulated rendition of Lewis Carroll’s novels.

Gabriel Stoffa is senior in communication studies and political science from Ottumwa.