I went into the movie “Alice in Wonderland” without ever seeing the first one. I thought, “Oh! It’s directed by Tim Burton! It must be good!” I knew that the merchandising for this movie was already horrendous, and I usually don’t like highly merchandised movies much because I feel it takes away from what the movie has to offer. But truthfully the only thing I went out with was a brain full of inspiration and a bit of confusion. I had no unhappy feelings about the movie at all because I actually liked it. However, this wasn’t the case for Junior Patrik White and his friends. He said they left right in the middle of it because it was so bad. Once the movie finally started, I was very weary and felt like I was in some history class. The characters were all dressed in dated attire and spoke with what may- just-have-been British accents. If that is what the movie was going to be like the entire time, I was definitely high-tailing it to the exit as soon as possible. Thankfully, it wasn’t, and I stuck around to see the phenomenon of Wonderland. Tim Burton is an astonishing director. He always twists things up amazingly and adds a sense of darkness to his films, but once I saw what must have been the first 15 minutes of the movie, I got a sense of déjà vu. In Tim Burton’s classic “A Nightmare Before Christmas,” Jack Skellington goes to different places via doors in the trees. In this movie, Alice ends up practically doing the same thing, without the door. Once the movie progressed however, I realized that he had once again totally outdone himself, and it was nothing like any other movie he had done before, nor one that I had ever seen. Then was when my confusion set in. A friend had said that the movie was meant to be a sequel to the first “Alice in Wonderland” story –– not a sequel to the first movie of course, but to the story. Since I didn’t know what that first story, my brain was throbbing just trying to figure out what was going on. Also, since I didn’t see the first one so I didn’t know if it was supposed to be a sequel or not. Finally, towards the end I thought the movie had finally cleared things up a bit and I understood more of where it was going on. I think the thing that captured my attention the most and was one of the main reason I liked the movie was the characters. The Mad Hatter, played by Johnny Depp, was weird and I thoroughly enjoyed his performance. But starting out, I thought the Mad Hatter looked very similar to the Red Queen, played by Helena Bonham Carter, and was also confused about whether they were supposed to be the same character in a different time period or what because there were also two rabbits in the movie and I was unsure if they were meant to be the same character as well. They weren’t, and I eventually figured that out, as well. Overall, the movie was really good. I don’t want to ruin any part of the movie if you do want to go see it but I am not sure exactly why I even liked it if I left confused about it. Maybe it was because I probably hadn’t seen a movie even similar to that one in years or because it was a classic story with a sudden twist. I don’t even know, but I would highly recommend “Alice in Wonderland” to anyone of any age because it was an amazing movie.