Cheap Alice in Wonderland (1999)

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In 1999, NBC broadcast a new version of Alice in Wonderland, created by the same folks who produced Gulliver's Travels, Merlin, and Noah's Ark. This star-studded version had Tina Majorino (from Waterworld) as a winsome Alice, and other stars like Whoopi Goldberg as the Cheshire Cat, Miranda Richardson (Crying Game) as a rather high-pitched, shrill Queen of Hearts, and Martin Short as a very amusing Mad Hatter. There are plenty of other stars, of course, but these are the ones you will notice the most. This particular production is a loose adaptation, really. It incorporates portions of both Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. And it adds a new twist Alice runs after the White Rabbit not out of curiosity from boredom but rather to escape from having to sing a song in front of many strangers at her parents' party. Her adventures in Wonderland as thus partially about how she summons the courage to overcome this stage-fright, and when she does, she returns to the real world. In the meantime, we see the usual interesting episodes in Wonderland the Mad Tea Cup party, the croquet match, Twiddledee and Twiddledum, the trial of tarts, the Duchess and her baby pig and cheshire cat, etc. There are even a few songs scattered here and there in the film the songs, for the most part, are nothing special but they do not distract much from the movie (some folks may also remember a 4-hour TV miniseries on the Alice books, filled with songs, from the 1980s; this was also star-studded and probably more faithful to the books but the songs were annoying).

The best thing about this new Alice film are the special effects. They are amazing and create a most bizarre, surreal, and colorful version of Wonderland. This makes the film great fun to look at. Also, Tina Majorino does a great job as Alice, and we really grow to really like her and sympathize for her as the film progresses. Martin Short, as I mentioned, is pretty funny, too. This is definitely a film the whole family can enjoy, and there is nothing offensive in the film at all. If you liked this film when you first saw it on TV, purchase it! I did! Currently, it sells for less than 10 dollars on some internet sites! Quite a bargain.

Finally, just a few words on the DVD itself. The colors are superb and the picture quality is clear and outstanding. Sound quality is quite good it won't give the subwoofers any workout, but nonetheless, it sounds very good for a TV broadcast. Extras on the disc include the usual suspects film production notes, cast notes, trailer, close captioning (instead of subtitles). There is also a small section showing the original illustrations of the Alice books, and lastly, a small section about the inspiration for the Alice books (quite informative for those who do not know about the real-life inspiration for Alice).

So, all in all, the DVD is worth the purchase and makes for many fun re-watching sessions for the kids. A good family recommendation!

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Lewis Carrol,when entertaining the liddel children one summer came up with a rather novel little story in which Alice Liddel would find herself in"wonderland",a place not entirely unlike Victorian England,but odd and charming(which 19th century England was not)...later Carrol(who was in fact the ,an Oxford Don,noted photographer,and local celebrity),would fill out the story told to little Alice Liddel and the charming"alice through the looking glass"was born..Apparently the book itself is no longer read,inasmuchas most of the reviews of this,the only really faithful adaptation of the work,compare it badly to the cartoon version by Disney...Carrol's humour was always grounded in 19th century current events,and many of the curious little poems included in the work were not so much"nonsense"as they were clever adaptations of events and personalities of the time period...The fact that young children,like Alice Liddel(then about ten years old) could recognise the grown-up aspects of the Carrol story while at the same time being entertained says much for the level of education given children then(and says much about the ABSENCE of such education now)..If one wants an entertaining,but largely gutted version of "Alice in wonderland" one should skip this film and opt for the Disney product...it is slick and uncompicated,and requires no thinking whatsover,a perfect film for the MTV generation...If ,on the other hand,YOU HAVE ACTUALLY READ THE BOOK,and want a film that reflects what Carrol actually wrote,then skip Disney & buy THIS version...you won't be disappointed...

Best Deals for Alice in Wonderland (1999)

If you are reading this you are probably trying to decide if this 'Alice' adaptation is worth watching or you may have already watched it and are wondering about the reaction of other viewers.

It is the most faithful (to the book) adaptation so far (faint praise as most efforts might as well have been original screenplays) and the sets, special effects, make-up and Muppets are light-years better than what others have tried.

But all is not right with this version of 'Wonderland' so Carroll fans should not get their hopes up too high. The adaptation involves some subtraction and a lot of addition (or as the Mock Turtle would say some 'Ambition and Distraction'). Unfortunately what was added does not begin to compensate for what was left out, it only pads the running length.

They added three scenes from 'Through the Looking Glass'. Stuck between the 'Lobster Quadrille' and the 'Who Stole the Tarts' chapters are: 'Tweedledum and Tweedledee', 'The Walrus and The Carpenter', and 'It's My Own Invention' with the White Knight. So the original story takes a not very entertaining detour-although the Walrus-Carpenter bits are fun and it is interesting to see a pre-Hagrid Robbie Coltrane as Tweedledum. Fortunately they group the three scenes together and it is not as disruptive as placing them separately at different points in the story.

Historically, the model for the characters are the illustrations that Carroll commissioned John Tenniel to carve on wood blocks. Although Carroll based the personality of his title character on ten-year-old brunette Alice Liddell, Tenniel used another model and gave the illustrated Alice her features and her long blonde hair. Although the movie generally deferred to Tenniel's illustrations, they made a critical error in casting Tina Majorino as Alice. She was 13-14 during the filming and looks ludicrous in the role. She was also quite homely at that age and you are thankful that the director used mostly wide shots so you don't have her face filling the screen. Thankfully her acting is so flat that she does not call much attention to herself. But the overall effect would have been so much better if they had used a younger actress (could they have made it three years earlier and used a 10-11 year-old Kiera Knightley).

The movie works in spite of a poor Alice, in large part because of the other major deviation from the Tenniel look. That would be casting Miranda Richardson as the Queen of Hearts. Instead of a fat and ugly queen we get a delicately beautiful one, and a hauntingly over-the-top performance. But it works because the performance is consistent with Carroll's idea of the queen as: 'a sort of embodiment of ungovernable passion-a blind and aimless Fury'.

And in her surreal make-up you can't take your eyes off Richardson (you literally focus on her face and see nothing else that is in the frame). Her performance was so inspired that she has been playing fairy tale queens ever since.

All the Muppet characters are excellent but for some reason they made Bill the Lizard a man instead of a muppet lizard. Did the producer owe someone a favor? Bill's scene at the Rabbits's House is the third best in the movie; only the croquet match and the trial are better.

And they messed with Carroll's dialogue for no useful purpose or discernible logic. For example they kept all the 'Mock Turtle's' puns, which are hard to follow even in print, while deleting some of the best lines from Alice's scene with the 'Cheshire Cat'; and the tea-party dialogue (and editing) is a shambles. You can't always tell when an original line was omitted but you can tell when something was added by the hack they hired to do the adaptation-all are stupid and some so modern that they are like hearing an off-key note on a flute.

Carroll's dialogue and Alice's thoughts are really the essence of the story.

Someday a director will shoot this thing with mega-reaction shots of Alice (played by a pleasing looking 'young' actress) and with voiceovers of her thoughts-then we will have something that really communicates Alice's curiosity, courage, kindness, intelligence, dignity, and sense of justice. Most important is to communicate her simple wonder (the only wonder about Majorino is how she got the role). The reader was meant to identify with these qualities but only Disney's Alice effectively exhibited them. It's sad when it is easier to identify with the book and with a cartoon Alice than with any of the actresses who have played the role.

Although some part of each chapter is included (Down the Rabbit-Hole, The Pool of Tears, The Caucus-Race, Little Bill, Advice from a Caterpillar, Pig and Pepper, A Mad Tea-Party, The Queen's Croquet-Ground, The Mock Turtle's Story, The Lobster Quadrille, Who Stole the Tarts, and Alice's Evidence), the bookend pieces of the story where Alice is not dreaming are missing. Instead there is a 'Wizard of Oz' kind of scene with the actors out of costume, playing guests at a garden party. This is done entirely to tie in with the writer's annoyingly artless addition of a preachy "the show must go on" theme which works to deflate each scene in which it is inserted.

This is the only unforgivable change to the story. Wonderland was not a process of self-discovery or personal development, it was a gift to the real Alice (and to future children) and should always end with the thoughts of Alice's older sister after hearing the details of the dream: 'Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman, and how she would keep, through all the years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood; and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago; and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days'. This is Carroll telling us why he made up the story.

Bottom line it is the best of the Alice films, a little too long but still worth watching-especially for the Miranda Richardson scenes.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

Honest reviews on Alice in Wonderland (1999)

When I first read of this adaptation in 1999, I was so excited to hear of a huge Hollywood version of my favourite book of all time. Another Wonderland to get lost in, another Alice to follow on her nonsensical, whimsical journey. What I ended up with was another reason not to trust American telemovies.

The last telemovie attempt at 'Alice In Wonderland' was in 1985 when Irwin Allen made a very admirable attempt at recreating both 'Wonderland' and its sequel 'Through The Looking-Glass'. In comparison to modern film technology, the sets are a bit plastic looking and there are one too many distractingly sickening songs, not to mention some embarrassing moments of 'special effects' (see the model train used to cringeworthy effect in 'Lookin-Glass'). However when stacked up against this travesty, Allen's creation is an absolute opus.

The biggest problem with this latest Wonderland is it gets lost in its own surface. As a result, it is a horribly stilted, detached and depthless rendering of one of the most exciting fictional worlds in modern literature. Nearly every setting is CGI'd beyond recognition, with unnecessary inclusions and digital touch-ups in almost as many scenes. As for the cast, for a group of actors who are arguably the cream of the Hollywood crop they turn in rather unimpressive performances. Tina is a solid Alice, but talented actors like the divine Whoopi Goldberg are wasted on parts like the Cheshire Cat. It comes off as another reviewer stated like a furry grey Whoopi Goldberg, not Goldberg playing a role. Unfortunately, this can be said for most of the other famous names in the film as well. As for the White Rabbit, I don't think I've ever seen a more unconvincing and irritating creature in my life. It looks like the perverted brother of the Energiser Bunny.

My other peeves with this version lie in the seemingly obligatory 'American-isation' of the original text, with the pointless and insulting inclusion of a journey of self-discovery to somewhat validate Alice's encounter with Wonderland. This not only subverts but trivialises the genius of Carroll's novels set against the backdrop of the morally-conscious Victorian world.

I will give props where necessary, however. Miranda Richardson's reading of the Queen is at first jarring with her high pitched screeching, but by the end of the film it becomes rather appealing. Her make-up and costume is not what is usually rendered as the Queen of Hearts, but quite a stellar variation. The card-house / court scene at the end is wonderful, as is the gloriously sensitive portrayal of the Mock Turtle by Gene Wilder (accompanied by one of the more convincing Henson creature creations as the Gryphon). If there is one reason to see this version of 'Wonderland', it is Martin Short as the deranged Hatter. His Hatter and his friend, a mildly psychotic, slightly disturbing reading of the March Hare is for me the perfect portrayal of Carroll's character and John Tenniel's original illustrations. The entire tea party sequence is delicious, pivotal, and embodies everything that Wonderland is nonsensical, entertaining and slightly darker than you'd first realise.

Shame the rest of the film is miles away from this superb scene.

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What a trip!!.. i just love this adaptation; although it wasn't the same as the book (maybe some lines were). The plot was a little altered in the sense that she enters wonderland to overcome her fear of performing in public, but it doesn't matter. The performing was good specially whoopy goldberg as cheshire cat, Martin Short as mad hatter (my fave), Ben kingsley as caterpillar and the tweedle brothers. For a 1999 version, the visual effects were awesome (in my opinion)and this is what i like the most. The bright colors and visual mind altering eye candished style makes you go with Alice to wonderland!!.. jeje. Anyway, i fully recomend this version if you like tripity sense of nonsense and love lewis carroll mind whoobling imagination.

Ez..