USA Today has really been at the forefront of hot-topic movie publicity lately. After recently premiering pics of Mickey Rourke in Iron Man 2 and Michael Moore in his own untitled upcoming documentary, the national news rag brings us our first official look at Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. The candy-colorful images include Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen and Anne Hathaway as the White Queen. Also, there are some great new concept art images of Alice, the White Rabbit, the talking flowers and Tweedledee and Tweedledum (for a fresh look at Matt Lucas as these brothers, head over to Movies.ie).

A lot of people are talking today about how creepy this movie looks. We agree that it will likely give some children nightmares, but that’s merely to be expected of any movie featuring Bonham Carter, who scares the crap out of me even in non-fantasy films like A Room with a View and Mighty Aphrodite. In this, looking like an older version of those big-head Steve Madden ads, she’s especially frightening, but I’m actually more worried that this bright-palette 3-D fantasy is more like Burton’s crappy Charlie and the Chocolate Factory adaptation than the brilliant take on Lewis Carroll’s classic we’ve been hoping for. After all, Depp is almost wearing the same top hat as he had in that movie. His hairdo is just more Carrot Top than Emo Philips now.

Check out what the other blogs are saying about these new images after the jump:

• Quint at Aint It Cool News believes Burton’s version will be “a walking, talking nightmare.” He continues:
  

  Fucking scary, right? I saw some stuff at ShoWest as well and the Cheshire cat is also terrifying. Seriously. I love that, though. Burton seems to have the perfect style for this universe and I’ve been screaming for studios to start making scary children’s films again (especially Disney, who have a history with them).

• Monika Bartyzel at Cinematical comments on the looks of Depp, Hathaway and Bonham Carter:
  

  …Depp rocking a killer clown look, and Hathaway looks excellent. But Bonham Carter really takes the cake (and coolest bobblehead ever prize) with her digitally swelled noggin and heart-pursed lips.

• Mark Graham at Vulture is terrified, but he disagrees over who takes the cake for scariest:
  

  Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter has bruised knuckles, filthy fingernails and looks as if he’s been on a four-year-long opium bender, while Helena Bonham Carter’s freakish Red Queen could not have been inspired by anyone other than John Wayne Gacy. However, the prize for scariest look clearly goes to Anne Hathaway: We haven’t seen eyebrows that harrowing since January Jones’s at the Golden Globes!

• Michelle Collins at Best Week Ever invites readers to compare this movie to the film that scared them most as a kid:
  

  Move over Follow That Bird, and take a hike, The Wizard of Oz. Because this is the New Millennium, and with it brings a whole new slew of movies children will likely see that will scar them for the better part of their lives…This will surely be the kind of movie that today’s youth will reference 20 years from now as “the movie that f**ked them up for good.” And no, that isn’t Elijah Wood…

• TMZ also notes the Elijah Wood likeness with a side-by-side comparison:
  

  One of them is being paid to look creepy…

  We’re just sayin’.

• Vince Mancini at FilmDrunk sees someone else in Depp’s look:
  

  Johnny Depp channels Kirsten Dunst Madonna as the Mad Hatter and Helena Bonham Carter sports a Nic Cage-like forehead expansion as the Red Queen.  It also stars sexy giraffe Mia Wasikowska (Wasikowska?) as Alice, and Anne Hathaway as the White Queen.

• Dustin Rowles at Pajiba is a little surprised at how creepy these pics are:
  

  …it’s actually, somehow, even more creepier than I’d expected of Tim Burton. Dark and cartoonish, I suspected — but, the images of Johnny Depp (as the Mad Hatter) and Helena Bonham Carter (as the Red Queen) are a coulrophobe’s nightmare. Depp looks like a Bohemian Bozo the Clown.

• Simon Dang at The Playlist apparently isn’t as surprised with the level of creepiness:
  

  Did you expect anything less strange?…Among the first glimpses are stills of Johnny Depp as an “off the rocker” Mad Hatter complete with a “Carrot Top mop” and “enlarged eyes tinted yellow (exactly like the leaked photos earlier this year, no one was sure were 100% real);” Helen Bonham Carter as the Red Queen with a “digital enhanced swelled head;” and Anne Hathaway as the White Queen who is reportedly very eccentric and prefers to float rather than walk.

• Mark at Bloody Good Horror is creeped out by the stills but looks forward to watching this under the influence:
  

  I’m really curious to see these characters in motion, mostly because if these stills keep staring at me like that I might just have to claw my eyes out. Either way, It’s been a really long time since there has been a mainstream animated (or psuedo-animated) “drug” film, and although I love all things Pixar, it’s about goddamn time that someone uses the medium for something other than cutesy talking animal flicks.

• Cole Abaius at Film School Rejects isn’t that impressed by the images:
  

  Helena Bonham Carter (surprise! she’s in it!) looks like she’s got an incredibly sexy receding hair line, and Anne Hathaway as The White Queen has a very Gandalf the White look to her…I can’t figure out for the life of me whether these images for Alice in Wonderland are creative or not. Here’s why: Tim Burton has a fantastic mind, but we’ve come to expect a certain style from him. So when he delivers on that style, it almost seems like he’s not trying even though he’s delivering exactly what we’d want from him.

• Craig Kennedy at Living in Cinema has a different opinion of how creative the film looks:
  

  I like the hallucinatory style. It’s of a piece with Burton’s other work, but it has a refinement that stands on its own.

• Kyle Buchanan at Movieline is surprised anyone is surprised by the images. He also does the best at addressing the news that Burton’s film is a kind of sequel to Carroll’s stories:
  

  With a take like that, it’s only natural for Burton to go the Return to Oz route with some outré character designs. And really, are we all that surprised that Johnny Depp would seize upon the Mad Hatter role as the chance to make himself look weird and employ a funny voice? It’s Johnny Depp. At this point in his career, if handed a Johnny Depp biopic, he would probably play himself with kabuki makeup, a topknot, and an accent borrowed from late-period Sally Struthers.

• Ryan Adams at Awards Daily is upset that anyone’s complaining about the “predictable” style (he is quoting from IESB.net’s post):
  

  It’s too bad the baroque design is already being described as “the usual Burton-esque ghoulishness” — as if consistent inventive flair and a signature style should be taken for granted. When environments as beautifully surreal as these can be called “usual” no wonder a lesser talent like Roland Emmerich has to blow shit up to get a reaction.

• Jeff Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere addresses the film’s mid 19th century setting:
  

  Hence the all-Anglo cast and lack of minorities, not to mention the possible absence of any political points or metaphors as they might apply to the present. But I don’t have the script.

• Kofi Outlaw at Screen Rant wonders if “disturbing” visuals should actually be a worry for Disney:
  

  That label, “disturbing,” raises questions as to who the audience for this film will be - but then again, Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory remake was pretty weird and many kids still managed to enjoy it. Will Wonderland share in that success or scare off the family crowd?