Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland - a first look through the looking glass

You do rather wonder if the Disney executives knew exactly what they were getting themselves into when they hired Tim Burton, the maverick mastermind behind Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice and Corpse Bride, to take on Lewis Carroll's famous tale, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, a classic of children's storytelling since its publication in 1865. Certainly, if they were expecting something cosy and comfortable, bright and dreamlike, they are going to be rather disappointed. Burton's version, shot in a mix of live action and performance capture CGI, looks dark as all hell, lurid, and unearthly. It also looks pretty fabulous Photograph: Unknown/Bettmann/Corbis

Alice in Wonderland is the seventh collaboration between Burton and Depp, following on from Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and 2007's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Photograph: Kevork Djansezian/AP

It will also mark his sixth collaboration with partner Helena Bonham Carter following the poorly received Planet of the Apes remake, Big Fish, Corpse Bride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Sweeney Todd Photograph: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Burton's version will be a sort-of sequel in which a 17-year-old Alice returns to Wonderland, allowing for a darker, more adult-orientated vision that takes in characters and storylines from both Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Frankly, the sight of seven-time Burton collaborator Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, resembling a dayglo-version of Adam Ant in his heyday, with a bit of Ronald McDonald thrown in for good measure, looks enough to have most small children running screaming from the room in terror Photograph: Disney

Not that Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen is any less frightening, that horrible receding hairline and flame-red hairdo contrasting rather hideously with the obligatory deathly pallor. And her over-sized head! Who would do this to their other half? In Burton's version, the character, who is actually an amalgam of the Red Queen and the Queen of Hearts from Carroll's original tales, has a whole moat-full of bobbing bonces, presumably culled from the necks of unfortunate victims of that famous refrain: "Off with their heads!" Photograph: Guardian

Set against the Red Queen is Anne Hathaway's White Queen, the kinder monarch who is betrayed by her evil sister. There has always been something slightly other-worldly about the beautiful Hathaway's features; perhaps those ever-so-slightly over-large eyes. This makes her pretty much perfect for the role, the white-blonde hair and dark eyebrows combining to make her look even more alien. She'll be working with Burton for the first time on the new film Photograph: Guardian

Playing Alice herself is 19-year-old Australian actor Mia Wasikowska, a virtual unknown. Burton's reimagining begins with her attending a party at a Victorian estate, only to find she is about to be proposed to in front of hundreds of snooty society types Photograph: Disney

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. Of course, the weird and wonderful inhabitants all remember her, very well indeed Photograph: PR

Little Britain's Matt Lucas is no stranger to playing offbeat characters, but Tweedledum and Tweedledee, who are the first people Alice meets in Wonderland, look like fresh-out-of-prison footie fans desperate for a decent cuppa Photograph: Disney

Terrifying twins who speak with one voice will be familiar to anyone who has seen The Shining, and Burton is clearly going to have fun with this particular cinematic trope Photograph: Guardian

It's all a long way from the traditional Alice, but producer Richard Zanuck recently told USA Today that he felt the new movie would not be too scary for youngsters. "The book itself is pretty dark," he said. "This is for little people and people who read it when they were little 50 years ago." Photograph: Rischgitz/Getty Images

Last week I saw some very early, soundless footage, as well as a mini-exhibition of some of the costumes and characters in the film. No pictures have yet been released of the Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry), the hideous Jabberwock (Christopher Lee) or the Caterpillar (Alan Rickman), but all are wonderfully skewiff versions of the original visualisations. It's hard to tell quite yet whether this is going to be the masterpiece it ought to be, but in terms of design alone, Burton and his team have come up with something wonderfully creepy and mesmerically vivid Photograph: PR