Originally posted on July 15, 2010, on another blog.
Yo, Cine Beast, reporting for duty. I’m taking a break from my extensive gaming schedule to continue writing my four-part review of the several adaptations of Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass. Let’s jump right back in, shall we?
Directed by: Nick Willing
Featuring: Every freakin’ actor alive in 1999 . . .
Written by: Peter Barnes
Year of Release: 1999
Running Time: 150 minutes
MPAA: PG
Budget: $21 million
Oh, boy . . . I’m in trouble. I’ve done some reading on this particular TV adventure and deduced that a lot of people really like it. They have said that the script is charming, the cast is memorable, the special effects are colorful, and they claim the musical numbers to be energetic.
Vomit, vomit, vomit.
I would feel more comfortable replacing the terms “charming” with “saccharin,” “memorable” with “unnecessary,” “colorful” with “overbearing,” and “energetic” with “annoying as hell.” Time to elaborate.
The gist of the film’s story is an attempt at not only combing Wonderland with Looking Glass, but also giving Alice a character arc. Played by Tina Majorino, Alice is an older girl who is having confidence issues and doesn’t want to sing “Cherry Ripe” at her parents’ garden party. When Alice confides in her mother that she’s having doubts about singing, her mother sweetly responds, “I understand, honey. After the party I’ll practice with you so you won’t be so frightened.”
Oh, wait, no, she doesn’t. “Don’t worry, Alice, you don’t have to sing. I’ll just be very disappointed with you if you don’t.”
What a wicked old hag. Head for the hills, Alice, your parents are spawns of Satan!
Actually, Alice does run away from home, which prompts her to fall asleep under a tree that sprouts flying apples (?) and dream that she follows the White Rabbit into Wonderland. From this point on, the plot is nearly identical to the series of events in Carrol’s first book, but a few characters from Through the Looking Glass are thrown into the mix to slow the film down and ruin the narrative. By interacting with the bizarre denizens of Wonderland Alice eventually gains confidence and wakes up to return to her parents’ party.
The problem with this story (beside it being amazingly dull and sickly-sweet) is that it disregards one of the few character traits Alice actually has in the books: self-confidence. Alice is the most confident seven year old I’ve ever read about, and she would not have any problem standing in front of a dozen party guests and singing for them. Yes, I should give some leeway, since this is, after all, an adaptation. It doesn’t necessarily feature the same characters or situations from the source material, I know that. It just doesn’t seem like it was written well enough, I suppose.
Plus, I meant it when I stated that self-confidence is one of only a few personality traits Alice has in the books. When this movie eliminates this trait, Alice loses a lot of her personality. Which is bad.
Let’s leave the story alone for now and look at the actors. After all, some movies can excell with a poor script as long as they have a good cast. This one does not. It’s got good actors in it (a lot of them) but none of them are used very well or given strong characters. Well, almost none of them. I’ll get back to that.
A huge problem with this adaptation (and just about every other adaptation, as well) is that there is no villain. Some might argue that Alice’s fear of singing/maturity/parties is antagonistic enough.
Bullcrap. I want a bad guy, is that too much to ask for? The Disney version essentially put the decapitating Queen of Hearts in the role of the villain. In this version, Miranda Richardson plays the Queen, but she ain’t a villain. Although Miranda doesn’t do an atrocious job, her character is just as flat as in the source material.
How about the Cheshire Cat? If I were to adapt the books, I’d make him the villain. What’s he like in this film?
Oh, he’s Whoopi Goldberg. Huh.
That’s . . . not exactly what I was expecting. I’ll give the casting director a few points for originality, though.
Actually, I think Whoopi does all right, but that may simply be because she’s playing my favorite character. Anyway, nearly the rest of the cast sucks. On to the music.
Yeah, this is a musical. The songs are awful. I’d show you a clip of one, but I don’t want your loss of sanity on my hands, so just take my word for it. The songs are really, really bad–
Wait a second, no they’re not! Well, not all of them, anyway.
You remember how I mentioned earlier that most of the cast is terrible (including Whoopi and Miranda)? Enter Gene Wilder!
(wild applause)
Late in the film Alice comes across some kind of weird shrine where she meets the Gryphon. There are a number of animatronic puppets in the film, but the one used for the Gryphon is easily the best*. Anyway, like in the book, the Gryphon soon introduces Alice to his friend, the Mock Turtle, who sings for Alice and inspires her to be brave and return to her parents’ party.
Everything about this sequence is fantastic, and makes the rest of the movie look like the piece of crap that it truly is. While most of the film is condescending, sickly-sweet, and overbearing, this one scene is . . . actually, the only word I can find to describe it is “genuine.” The Gryphon puppet looks gorgeous and moves fluidly; Gene Wilder’s Mock Turtle is instantly likable and pleasant; and the two songs he sings for Alice, while a little too short, are funny and catchy, unlike every other song in the film. The general tone of this one sequence is incredibly personable and about as un-annoying as you can get, and if the rest of the film shared a similar tone, this might be my favorite Alice adaptation.
As it really is, however, it’s not. It’s definitely not.
This movie . . . besides the Mock Turtle scene, it all feels so fake. The special effects are overused, the cast is both overwhelming and trivial, all of those ear-splitting songs . . . and more than anything else, the very tone of the film is absolutely irritating. It’s like a condescending relative is putting on a colorful but boring puppet show for you while constantly pulling on your cheek . . . for 150 minutes.
Cine Beast’s Rating: 1/10 2/10 (+1 for the Mock Turtle)
Directed by: Dallas Bower
Featuring: Carol Marsh, Stephen Murray, and Pamela Brown
Written by: Edward Eliscu, Albert E. Lewin, and Henry Myers
Year of Release: 1949 (France) 1951 (USA)
Running Time: 76 minutes
MPAA: Unrated
Budget: Unknown
It’s not widely known that in 1951, two adaptations of Alice in Wonderland were released in the USA, one being the acclaimed Disney cartoon, obviously. Disney made sure that the other film had only a limited release since they feared competition.
This mysterious “other movie” is difficult to find on video or DVD, but iMDB has a pseudo instant-watch system that features it. Naturally, the quality of the film straight from the Internet is horrible, but I don’t think that’s necessarily iMDB’s fault. This “other movie” probably wasn’t made with the best technology and obviously hasn’t been preserved very well.
The film is . . . strange. With a film based on the Alice books (often called the most psychedelic children’s books in history) I think it’s good if the movie is a little weird. But that’s not the word I used. I used “strange.” I don’t like using that word as much as I like saying “weird.”
Only a few of the many Alice adaptations pull off the feverish feel of a dream: the 1972 theatrical film (which I’ll review next time) and, of course, the freaky Czechoslovakian film of 1988. This “other movie” is the third Alice I’ve yet seen to emulate the feeling of a dream, but it’s certainly not a dream I’d like to have. It’s so . . . boring.
Let me shift gears and focus on the positive aspect of the film instead: it has a plot. Crazy, huh? Unlike most adaptations, content to regurgitate the meaningless events of the books, this strange film actually dares to try and construct a cohesive narrative. Would it stand up to an Enneagram analyzation? No, I doubt it, but atleast a few of the numbers would make sense.
The film begins in England, with Charles Dodgson and the Liddel family, preparing to receive the Queen herself later in the morning. Charles Dodgson is intending to criticize the Queen when she arrives and knock some sense into her concerning English architecture or something. He’s scared to do this (obviously) so to calm his own nerves and gain some courage he takes the three Liddel daughters out on a boat trip and tells them a fantastic story. This lengthy introduction is surprisingly complicated, but also utterly pointless and dull. The entire opening 15 minutes of this film have nothing to do with rest of the movie, and they should have been excised.
When Charles Dodgson actually tells the story (the real film) than things start looking very familiar. Alice (one of the three Liddel daughters) is alone on a bank of the Thames river when she spots a White Rabbit and follows him down a hole into Wonderland. Early on in the film Alice visits the White Rabbit’s house to retrieve his gloves and fan (like in the book) and subsequently grows enormous and destroys his house (sort of like in the book).
What’s not like the book is how the White Rabbit reacts to Alice breaking his house into pieces: he devotes himself to revenge and seeks to have Alice killed. An antagonist? Sweet! Finally!
In the book, there’s a subplot concerning the Knave of Hearts and whether or not he stole the Queen’s tarts. In this “other movie” that sub-plot is made into the main story: it is established very early on in the film that the Knave has taken the Tarts, and he is found out by the White Rabbit. Instead of arresting the Knave, WR let’s him escape and tells the “Heart Police” that the newcomer (Alice) has stolen the tarts. From this point on Alice is constantly being chased by the Heart Police, who basically push her from one location to the next. The Duchess is met, the Mad Hatter is visited, the Mock Turtle is found, yada yada. When Alice finally reaches the Queen of Heart’s garden the WR accuses her of theft and Alice is put on trial (similar to the Disney version). After the trial is finished, Alice awakens back in the boat with her sisters and Dodgson, and the four row away, but not before Alice makes her peace with the White Rabbit for destroying his home. Awwww.
So, what do you know? And adaptation with a villain, a problem, and a resolution. Too bad the story is drowned by horrible, horrible presentation. The stop-motion effects are ugly and gross; Carol Marsh is annoying and painfully bad as Alice; the audio and visual quality sucks; even the editing is poor (choppy and abrupt). Plus (or rather, negative), this is another musical, and just like the 1999 ear-killer reviewed above, the songs are trash. Unlike the 1999 version, however, each song is quite long and drones on and on . . .
As I said, it’s like a strange and somewhat pleasant dream. An incredibly boring dream that you can’t wake from, but somewhat pleasant all the same, right?
Well, ta ta for now. We’re only halfway through the review. Cine Beast, signing off.
Cine Beast’s Rating: 4/10
*Ironically, the Gryphon puppet wasn’t even made for this particular film, but for The Jim Henson Hour, ha! (Source: iMDB)