If there are two things guaranteed to get audiences revved up, it’s Robert Pattinson and that nutty girl from Lost.

Remember Me has both. And yet Remember Me has crapped the bed at the weekend box office this week. Alice In Wonderland is still firmly the number one weekend box office movie, with Matt Damon Iraq thriller Green Zone easing itself in at number two. But Remember Me could only manage the lowly fourth place position. Why?

Easy – unless he’s playing a sparkly vampire, nobody cares that much about Robert Pattinson. And, unless she’s hauling about a baby made of an animal skull and a couple of buttons for eyes, nobody cares that much about the nutty girl from Lost. There’s a lesson there – rebrand the movie as Remember My Glittery Torso, Nightmarish Animal Skull Baby in time for the DVD release and you’ll have a hit on your hands.

Alice In Wonderland is still the number one movie at the weekend box office and, if our experiences are anything to go by, it’ll be there for a while. We’ve tried to go and see Alice In Wonderland twice now, in two different cinemas, and both screenings have been sold out. That didn’t even happen with Avatar. Does that mean that Alice In Wonderland has the potential to overtake Avatar as the biggest movie of all time?

Probably not. But that’s just as well. We haven’t got the energy to keep referencing Alice In Wonderland as laboriously as we’ve done with Avatar in everything we write. Plus, the Oscars only happened about a week ago, so by the time that Ben Stiller decides to read out some nominations dressed up as the Mad Hatter, it’ll look even more embarrassing than usual. Still, here are the US weekend box office highlights…

1 - Alice In Wonderland (Of course, if Alice In Wonderland does go on to become the biggest movie ever, maybe Tim Burton will take James Cameron‘s lead and turn it into a book. A book based on Alice In Wonderland! What a crazy idea!) $62,000,000

2 - Green Zone (Cool, it’s got Matt Damon in it, so maybe it’ll be exciting like The Bourne Identity! But, oh no, it’s got Matt Damon in it, so maybe it’ll be tedious and over-long and worthy and without any real plot to speak of like Syriana!) $14,535,000

3 - She’s Out Of My League (A film about a girl who’s out of a man’s league. Or bloody something. Oh, we don’t know) $9,600,000

4 - Remember Me (With every passing underwhelming movie that Robert Pattinson makes, the chances of him only ever making Twilight derivatives for the rest of his life grow a little bit bigger. So, based on Remember Me, you should probably book your tickets for 2048′s megahit Earlybird Special: Vampire Pensioners Go For Dinner now) $8,300,000

6 - Our Family Wedding (A film where Oscar-winning actor Forest Whitaker gets molested by a horny goat. We cannot for the life of us understand why this only got to number six in the weekend box box office) $7,600,000

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No wonder people are flocking to see Alice In Wonderland – where else would they get to see the dream team of Tim Burton, Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp?

Oh, that’s right. Everywhere else. Anyway, why has Alice In Wonderland topped the weekend box office? Early reviews have largely been negative, citing a lazily-defined plot and an over-reliance on computer animated 3D graphics as its main weaknesses, so maybe the reason why it’s done so well is because people keep confusing it with Avatar.

Or maybe it’s top of the weekend box office because everyone thought they were really seeing a film called Alice In Sunderland, and then became disappointed when they were presented with a fantastical fairy tale instead of a grim melodrama about a dirt-covered northerner shuffling around a bleak industrial town eating dead animals off the road for sustenance.

It’s a big weekend for movies. Thanks to yesterday’s Oscars, we now know what the best film of the last year was, and – more importantly – we also know what Meryl Streep looks like in a nice dress. And thanks to the US weekend box office, we know that people quite like Alice In Wonderland. Or at least they liked the look of Alice In Wonderland enough to pay to see it, and then didn’t hate it enough to torch their cinemas to the ground midway through act two. That’s roughly the same thing, isn’t it?

Here’s the US weekend box office top five…

1 - Alice In Wonderland (Tim Burton loves the UK enough to adapt Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Sweeney Todd and now Alice In Wonderland into movies. Next up: a breathtaking reimagining of 1987 Rumpole Of The Bailey episode Rumpole And The Judge’s Elbow, starring Johnny Depp as Rumpole and Helena Bonham Carter as the judge’s elbow) $116,300,000

2 - Brooklyn’s Finest (A Tesco-style experiment. Brookyln’s Finest is the first film to be released, directed by the brain behind Training Day and starring the likes of Ethan Hawke and Richard Gere, and tickets to see it are relatively expensive. Next week it’ll release Brooklyn’s Value – a remake of Brooklyn’s Finest directed by Nick Love and starring Dean Gaffney and Paul Danan. Tickets will be 10p each) $13,500,000

3 - Shutter Island (We’ve still managed to get this far without figuring out what the big Shutter Island twist is. Unless the twist is that Leonardo DiCaprio was mad all along, in which case we may as well not bother bloody watching it now) $13,300,000

4 - Cop Out (There’s a very good chance that more people watched Bruce Willis‘s cameo in the new Gorillaz video than Bruce Willis in Cop Out this week. There’s a lesson there somewhere) $9,145,000

5 - Avatar (Almost definitely Avatar’s last week in the weekend box office. That’s unless people start spazzing out about how it did at the Oscars and go to see it again and it goes back to number one next week and our nightmare starts afresh, of course) $7,700,000

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Tim Burton drags us down the rabbit-hole kicking and screaming in this adaptation of the children’s book Alice In Wonderland, managing to take away any of the wonderment that many may have felt for this beloved tale.

You would think that the pairing of Burton with Lewis Carroll‘s famous series would be a film of visual splendour, but Burton’s approach here is to suck any life out of this Wonderland, and many of its inhabitants too. Visually, its reliance on special effects makes this world seem artificial and Burton’s unique aesthetics look uninspired. You never feel that you are walking around this world with Alice and her chums.

Alice (Mia Wasikowska) could do with a lick of life herself, with the standard Burton turn-on for making his leads look like they have an iron deficiency – but Alice matches this with a lack of personality as well. She coasts through the film with this mystical absentness, attributing much of her surroundings to a bad dream and constantly never reacting to the situation with any real conviction. Much of this film rests on her shoulders and it isn’t long before the weight has crushed poor Wasikowska.

Not that she is the main draw here – my god – let’s not forget that this movie has Johnny Depp in it. Yes, it’s that wacky bed-fellow of Burton, turning up looking like some weird 80’s Madonna music video, while wearing Carrot Top’s pubes on his head. His performance is eccentric to the point that any fascination you may have once had for the character is quickly forgotten. Depp even supplies a comedy Scottish accent at times – because it worked so well for Mike Myers in Austin Powers.

The film does have its moments; mainly in the form of The Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter), whose inflated head and matching ego find the right balance between being a menacing beast and a humorous addition to the world of Underland. It seems too that Stephen Fry and Matt Lucas got the memo, making both the Cheshire Cat and the Tweedle twins captivating in their small amount of screen time.

You may think we are skirting around the plot here and in honesty we’re not – it is just there is no plot to talk about in the first place. There is some guff about Alice fighting some dragon and finding her way to The White Queen (Anne Hathaway), but it’s pretty irrelevant, taking second fiddle to Depp and the unimpressive visuals.

The White Queen herself floats around pointlessly with the plot, Anne Hathaway playing her as if walking on air and talking like she’s on the edge of sexual climax – it makes for excruciating viewing.

When Alice finally confronts the dragon on a CG chessboard, the conclusion feels so out of place with the world. The final battle is Burton just regurgitating every other unsatisfying Hollywood climax but with his added visual pretentiousness. Throw in a moral message that is as confused as the audience and you have one of the most disappointing films in recent years.

And if you thought that the 3D would assault you senses, then wait until you hear the closing credits song by Avril Lavigne – clearly Wonderland’s most horrific creation.

‘Spray Rating: 2/5

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10 – All the Wimbledon news you will ever need. EVER – Interestment

9 - Here’s a very good podcast that you probably subscribe to immediately – Watchwithmothers

8 - Brief sincerity interlude: donate any money to the Fresh Air Fund before the end of the week and your donation will be matched exactly by a group of generous donors - Fresh Air Fund

7 - We know what you came here for – a picture of Lady GaGa shooting flames out of her nipples. We’re only too happy to oblige - AmyGrindhouse

6 - A thing about bras, written by an expert on bras – Dollymix

5 – Why impressionists are rubbish – Shoutingatcows

4 – Remember the 1990s? This man does. Here’s a megamix to prove it – Mychemicaltoilet

3 - Do you like SUGAR? Do you like HEARTS? Do you have A NAUSEATING AMOUNT OF MONEY? Then this may be for you – Domesticsluttery

2 - It’s not even out yet, but Alice In Wonderland has already made us want to cry – Bestweekever

1 - This is probably fake. But it is AWESOME…

Hey Geri Halliwell, what do you think about the new pictures of Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton’s new movie adaptation of Alice In Wonderla… oh.

We’ve made a terrible mistake.

You always know what you’re getting with a new Tim Burton film – Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, resignation that the movie won’t be as good as Edward Scissorhands.

But one thing you you don’t get is big-faced actresses in the middle of slightly humiliating personal meltdowns. Well, you do now, because Anne Hathaway has just signed up to star in Tim Burton’s new adaptation of Alice In Wonderland.

In Alice In Wonderland, Anne Hathaway will play the White Queen – a pretty young woman who looks a bit stupid because her boyfriend pretended to be chums with the Pope to con strangers out of millions of dollars and then ended up in jail because of it. We have no idea why Tim Burton wanted Anne Hathaway for the role.

Anne Hathaway needs to take her mind off everything at the moment. Sure, she might be earning some Oscar buzz for her turn in Rachel Getting Married – primarily, from what we can tell, for looking a bit sad in a movie filmed on a handheld camera where everyone mumbles a lot – but that hasn’t stopped people talking about her personal life.

It wasn’t so long ago that Anne Hathaway split up with her boyfriend Rafaello Follieri right before he was arrested for defrauding people by playing up his connections to the Vatican in a dodgy property scam. Even now, during the promotion for Rachel Getting Married, Anne Hathaway only gets asked questions about what it’s like to have a big wanker for a boyfriend.

So it’s only natural for Anne Hathaway to want to get away from all that – and she’s planning to do that by starring in Tim Burton’s new Alice in Wonderland movie – a movie that will also star Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Johnny Depp, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp. And nobody else. Probably. BBC News reports:

Anne Hathaway and Helena Bonham Carter are to star in Tim Burton’s Disney version of Alice in Wonderland, according to US media. The Hollywood Reporter says Brokeback Mountain star Hathaway will play the White Queen while Burton’s fiancee Bonham Carter will play the Red Queen. Burton’s take on Lewis Carroll’s novel is slated for release in March 2010.

It almost seems as if Anne Hathaway is deliberately trying to make as many different films as she can. She’s done kid’s films, romantic comedies, indie movies, arthouse movies, summer comedies and, in Havoc, badly-advised movies about nothing where she got to take off her top and pretend to have a wank. And now she’s doing a Gothic fantasy adaptation of a beloved novel.

Wonderful – that only leaves straight-to-DVD Steven Seagal action movies and porn on Anne Hathaway’s movie genre checklist. And we do love Steven Seagal. But what’s Alice in Wonderland actually going to be like?

Well, since Alice in Wonderland is a Tim Burton movie that stars Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, it’s probably fair to describe it as Charlie And The Chocolate Factory but without all the boring parts where people break into song for no reason. Or, if you’re feeling kinder, Sweeney Todd but without all the boring parts where people break into song for no reason. Or, if you’re feeling kinder still, The Corpse Bride but without all the boring parts where people break into song for no reason.

Unless in Alice In Wonderland people do break into song for no reason. In which case we’re all buggered.