Alice in Wonderland (1999)

Truly Dreadful Film

It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This may be one of the great unknown or under-appreciated films. I am a big fan of Lewis Carrol's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There", and for near perfect translation of the former, this is the only live-action film to compete with Disney's "Alice in Wonderland" and to do so more faithfully to the book without glaring omissions and amalgamations between the two works. The cast is marvelous featuring Tina Majorino as the titular character (you may know her most famously from Napoleon Dynamite) with perhaps the film's best performance from a perfect Mad Hatter played by Martin Short. The special effects are impressive for a 1999 TV movie and the imaginative sets and costumes are clearly inspired by the original Sir John Tenniel sketches, going as far as including the heads-to-large-for-their-bodies proportions. I would be remiss to neglect mentioning the astounding work of Jim Henson's Puppet Studio to masterfully bring Carrol's creatures to life, from the White Rabbit to the Gryphon. I give a ten without a hint of hyperbole, for as far as a live action film adaption of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland goes, I eagerly await Tim Burton's attempt to see if this can be topped.

When you fall down a very deep hole like Alice did, hitting your head on the way down, it is almost certain you'll end up with a sore head and more than likely a certain amount of concussion. In her concussed state Alice begins to experience wild imaginings. At least that is how I explain her strange behaviour.Lewis Carroll seems to have a fixation about body size with Alice only too ready to experiment drinking from unmarked bottles on more than one occasion. When the world becomes all out of proportion, the story takes on a dream-like quality and when Alice cries the whole floor is awash with tears. It's strange how we accept all the nonsense that makes up our dreams. Alice accepts all these weird happenings too.Alice (Tina Majorino) is not the sweet little blond that one might expect in this fantastic tale, but a determined brunette ready and willing to argue a point or save someone in distress. She even fronts up to the screeching Queen of Hearts who seems to be determined that everyone should lose their head.I feel that some of the scenes were too long. I also find some of the scenes not very funny. The knight falling repeatedly from his horse does not send one off into fits of laughter. I also find Tweedledum and Tweedledee a bit of a bore. On the other hand I think that Whoopi Goldberg steals the show as the grinning Cheshire cat. I just cannot forget that face.Some of the sets are top class. My favourite is the Court of Law where the whole building is built of playing cards. And like any house of cards collapses in the end.Alice's imagination runs riot when she sees flamingos being used as croquet mallets. but then, as I said, anything goes in a dream.The story is nicely rounded off when in the end we see the family and friends and relatives and household staff gathered together to hear Alice sing a little song. There is something mischievous about this scene as we recognize the all too familiar faces of Alice's subterranean Wonderland.

What could have been a magic Alice using the formula of top Stars in the cameo roles as in the 1933 version, is dulled by excessive length and an unnecessary sub plot, concerning Alice's shyness in performing a song for a family gathering.Also combining scenes from Through the Looking Glass while pleasant in themselves, extends the running time, and the pedestrian pace of the film. Sure there are some magic moments, and fortunately the designers have called upon Sir John Tenniel's illustrations for their characters, and the dialog when it is from Lewis Carroll's text is happily nonsense. It is bits that are not by Carroll that detract sadly.It could have been much better, and even Tina Majorino doesn't make an especially attractive Alice. Perhaps re-editing it down to about 90 minutes would make it a winner, but we'll never know. A pity because some of the segments are very good indeed, with guests like Whoopy Goldberg, Martin Short, Ben Kingsley, Miranda Richardson, Peter Ustinov, and Pete Postlethwaite enjoying themselves immensely

The story will be familiar to most. Dreading a singing recital at her parents' lavish home, Alice falls into a strange world in pursuit of a large White Rabbit. The talented child actor Tina Majorino (Corrina, Corrina, Napolian Dynamite) plays Alice with all the good graces but mostly wanders through strange, hallucinogenic journeys that take her to strange places, has her shrink and then grow very large, and leads her to meet all sorts of surreal characters...Carroll's tale of whimsical, illogical adventures is a field day for designers, the costumes and makeup are extremely well done, and the special effects are of the usual high standard you would expect from Jim Henson's Creature Shop. But this production is all dressed up without anywhere worthwhile to go. Influenced by Time Bandits and Labyrinth, the film has a splendid array of effects, many dealing with multiple perspectives...The highlights are Whoopi Goldberg as the Cheshire Cat, a seamless mix of cat and comic. Martin Short as the Mad Hatter. And Mirandra Richardson as the Queen of Hearts, who has put a memorable, if not piercing, personal stamp on the line, "Off with his head". She must say it sixty times during the movie...The show is not for all tastes, particularly if your idea of Alice in Wonderland is solidly fixed upon Disney's very different if unjustly maligned 1951 animated feature. If you're in the right frame of mind, however, Miller's Alice works wonderfully well….