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Alice in Wonderland (TV) More at IMDbPro »

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80 reviews in total

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18 out of 22 people found the following review useful:
Extremely clever, 7 March 1999
Author: Beth DiLeo (oola@hotmail.com) from California

As you watch the beginning of "Alice in Wonderland", pay close attention to the guests at the tea party. You might notice Martin Short and his companion, a man placing two buns atop his head as if he were, say, a March Hare. Notice also the man flirting with the woman at the end-you could almost call him a scurvy Knave. But enough with the plays on words. This version of "Alice in Wonderland" was exceedingly well done. From the moment Alice falls down the rabbit hole to the moment she catches the apple, we are spellbound by the fantasy the film has woven for us. Part of its appeal is its satirical notions. Consider the "caucus race", where everyone is cheating. Cynics of politics might agree with this. There is also the trial at the end, where the evidence is as insubstantial as a house of cards. One needs to watch the film or read the novel many times to pick up all of the references!

I enjoyed watching Alice's transformation from stage fright child to confident young girl. It was a continuing thread that helped the story attain a greater level of continuity. Yet the most entertaining portions of the film were those with Martin Short, Miranda Richardson, and Gene Wilder, to name a few. They held nothing back, which magnified the absurdities of their characters to the nth degree. Lastly, the featuring of the tea party at the beginning of the film and the end helped tie it together. A well done film.

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16 out of 20 people found the following review useful:
Decent TV Version, 8 December 2005

Author: lual from Jena, Germany

I love the two Alice books and quite often I find myself looking through the pages, reading some of my favorite parts.

I think for a TV_version, this film works quite well, it is a treat to watch all those celebrities becoming some of the most famous characters in literature. Strangely though, my favorite sequence is the one with Peter Ustinov and Pete Postlethwaite as the Walrus and the Carpenter, probably the only scene in the movie that does not contain CGI.

So, why only six stars? As in most versions, the makers of the movie have mixed all kinds of elements from "Alice in Wonderland" with "Through the looking glass" (Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum, The Walrus and the Carpenter, The White Knight). It may work, if you really look at the books just as a collection of episodes, but whenever this is done, the makers miss the point of the books. Alice in "Through the looking glass" is quite different from Alice in "Alice in wonderland" and also, there is a completely different composition to the latter book which is explained in the preface and which finds no acknowledgment whatsoever here. I think the makers of this movie again don't understand the books at all and though I enjoy watching these scenes independently from each other, the whole leaves me unsatisfied.

I have gotten used to mixing the Alice stories, Walt Disney has done the same thing and others as well. But what bothers me most about this film it that it turns the whole thing into a story of initiation. Come on.... Alice does not dare to perform a song in front of her parent's guest but after walking through Wonderland she finally does? This is just plain wrong and completely in contrast to the meaning of the books. Why would you want do make sense out of nonsense? The books are meant to portray Victorian stereotypes, make fun of language etc, but not to enrich a child to become more independent and self-assured. Moreover, it does not make sense at all, why Alice should finally be able to sing in front of the others.

All in all, this movie has fine performances and puppets and decent (considering the time it was made and it being made for TV) CGI, is nice to look at but in the end only mediocre TV-entertainment.

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15 out of 19 people found the following review useful:
The Best of Times, the Worst of Times, 4 January 2001
Author: Ephraim Gadsby from USA

Alice's adventures in Wonderland have always been easy to visualize, thanks to Tenniel's classic illustrations; but they have been difficult to realize. With computer technology at the state it's at at the turn of the twenty-first century, for the first time Tenniel can come to life in a way that doesn't look like animation.

This is the best looking "Alice" ever. The backgrounds are consistently excellent. The passage from one episode to the other is suitably dreamlike. The computer-animated characters are superb.

The cast is variable. Tina Majorina was a revelation as Alice. I had to check imdb to make sure she wasn't just someone like Reese Witherspoon, an older actress able to look ten years younger. Her performance was exquisite, even better than Fiona Fullerton's 1972 Alice.

Martin Short was good as the Mad Hatter (everyone has a favorite Mad Hatter from days past, and mine was Robert Helpmann from 1972, who also played the child-catcher in "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang"). All the royalty were good. Problems in the cast were Gene Wilder; it might've been his most understated performance since his droll turn as Willie Wonka, but good as he was, he was nevertheless out of place and looked ridiculous and uncomfortable in his costume. Too, though Whoopi Goldberg wasn't bad as the Cheshire cat, the point of her performance was to show Whoopi Goldberg as the Cheshire cat rather than the cat itself.

The "Looking Glass" intrusions weren't out of place. A miniseries doing "Wonderland" one night and "Looking Glass" the next might've been nice, but the best elements were taken from "LG" and the results don't look patched in. The cameos, again, are variable. Robbie Coltrane is an actor too little used and it's good to see him anywhere; and though I might've preferred to see him in a dual role, he worked well with George Wendt as Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Christopher Lloyd was perfectly cast as the White Knight, but the White Knight got short shrift and was hardly worth sticking in at all, other than -- once more -- to say, "Look, we got Christopher Lloyd in a thankless role!". "The Walrus and the Carpenter" was not at all distracting -- and with Peters Ustinov and Postlethwait one would almost wish for a whole movie just about them.

The problems, however, do keep it from being the authoritative "Alice". For one thing, someone thought it would be clever to add lines. In most filmed novels this isn't so bad, since the dialogue in books serves a different purpose than the dialogue in movies. But Carroll's dialogue is so precise he might've been writing a play; and it's so well known that any extraneous line stands out like re-writings in "Hamlet". One gets the idea that the writers thought they were as clever as Carroll, and proved that the most notable thing about them was their collective ego.

This led to particular difficulties with the caterpillar. Ben Kingsley was a good choice for the role and -- like everyone else in the movie -- was very good. But his part seemed altered enough to make one suspicious of the writers' intentions. The framing sequence wasn't bad (again, perhaps a whole movie with that cast in non-Wonderland parts would be wonderful), not as bad as Carroll purists would say, but was unnecessarily preachy, as if the story had to have a moral at the end.

A number of roles in the "Alice" books should, when performed, have human performers: The Mad Hatter, the King and Queen and Jack of Hearts, the Duchess, Tweeledum and --dee, the White Knight, et. al. Some, since we have the technology, should be done by computer graphics, with famous voices, if need be. Star-studded "Alice" vehicles have appeared in the past: the top-heavy 1985 Natalie Gregory "Alice", for instance, where a famous actor's face had to be seen in every role; and the notable 1972 Fiona Fullerton bomb, where many of Britain's finest actors (including Peter Sellers and Ralph Richardson) made complete fools of themselves.

Overall, this is the best Alice ever made (including Disney's). It has dreadful moments where famous actors are shoehorned into roles just to say they're there. It has peculiar elements from "Looking Glass" mixed in at odd angles, but such as they are they aren't terrible. And it has a beautifully talented Alice. For those who aren't dogmatic about their Carroll, this is the one to see if you're looking for an "Alice" to pass an afternoon. And children, who don't know any better than we opinionated adults, will be delighted.

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15 out of 19 people found the following review useful:
Visionary, 2 March 1999

Author: Scott Andrew Hutchins (scottandrewh@yahoo.com) from New York, New York

Lewis Carroll is a difficult author to adapt satisfactorily to the screen. Worse yet, most versions try to add some sort of lesson to the story that was never there to begin with. This, too uses a version that simply doesn't work. Alice does not want to have to sing "Cheery Ripe" so the whole film becomes about the importance of performing for an audience. That fails to really hold the film together. Despite this, this is probably the best-looking version of the two books yet. It does neither what the Children's Theatre Company did in 1982, and try to exactly mimic Tenniel's illustrations, nor that of the Harry Harris production, in which the actors had to be recognizable so they wore simple costumes with pig ears or rabbit ears, etc. Here there is a mix of puppetry and mere suggestion. Many of the minor anthropomorphics simply bear resemblance to whatever animal they were supposed to be, such as there was the use (again) of an all-star cast. It frequently makes fun of the fact that many of the cast do not speak in an English accent, though the American actor playing Alice does. The film, however, has beautiful cinematography and visionary effects. The early sequence in the library seems like the Halmis are trying to out-Gulliver their adaptation of Book III of Gullvier's Travels. The extreme visuals begine with the giant metronome at the beginning and carry all sorts of wonderful metaphor. Odd jump cuts and strange reflections don't look like goofs, but contribute to weirdness. A storm like _The Neverending Story_'s Nothing forces her to move on in her dream world to escape. The sped-up photography for the White Rabbit seems a nod to _El Gatto con Botas_, and of course, it's tied together like MGM's version of _The Wizard of Oz_. Like all films of these books, it has good elements and poorly handled elements, and certainly there is no definitive version, but this is one of the more interesting ones.

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8 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
More screwing around with the classics...sigh, 19 August 2006

Author: StacheHunter (StacheHunter@aol.com) from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I missed seeing this version of "Alice" when it first appeared on TV, and having seen pretty much every version of this classic story, decided it was time to give it a look. Unfortunately, this particular attempt to put the story on screen is pretty lame, with the exception of the Henson effects crew and art production people being the only worthwhile things about it. I cannot understand why writers/directors feel they must somehow reinvent classic books that have stood the test of time in their original versions, but here we are again looking at a ridiculous plot device about Alice being afraid to sing at her parent's garden party, where all the attendees later turn up in Wonderland as the various characters Alice encounters. She learns a murky lesson about "being brave", which pretty much ruins the charm and insanity of the book. Obviously, the director Nick Willing thought he'd borrow the real/fantasy dualities of the characters a la "The Wizard of Oz", an annoying wink in the "hey it's only a dream" direction. While the effects, costumes, and settings were often beautifully handled, we are treated to the jarring opposition of allowing the big "guest stars" to portray various creatures but being allowed to keep their own heads so we could go "oooh look, it's Gene Wilder as the Mock Turtle!", while lesser actors labor inside full suit and masks. It makes no sense and ruins the effect. Only the mad tea party sequence actually nods in the direction of the original illustrations we've all come to know and love. Even then, Mad Hatter Martin Short is allowed to sing "Auntie's Wooden Leg" in a sort of Dixie banjo vaudeville routine while the March Hare bangs away on a gigantic steam teapot/calliope sort of thing. Not in the book, I can assure you. This flat version strips the best of Lewis Carroll's dialog and dumbs it down immensely. Halfway through, "Wonderland" turns into "Through the Looking Glass", omitting important sequences and characters from the second book, which is not a sequel, but a separate speculation on what's real versus what's unreal. I wish that Paramount Pictures would finally allow the DVD release of their 1931 version of "Alice" which is jaw-dropping in its faithfulness to both books and the fabulous illustrations of Sir John Tenniel. This rarely seen film is nothing less than a moving version of the books, retaining every scrap of Carroll's piquant wit. This latest version of "Alice" should be dropped down the nearest rabbit hole and forgotten.

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5 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
What A Trip!, 9 April 2002

Author: (mogwai@maths.tcd.ie) from Dublin, Ireland

Yeah, maybe it's got its faults (Looking Glass scenes added in inexplicably, whatever), but by God this is the trippiest film ever made! Hours and hours of madness! It's like you're in a dream that takes control of you. The grass and the trees are so green, the colours are so amazingly vivid, the camerawork is so - melty? - and everything just flows together in the weirdest, most unreal way. So enjoyable. Everything is happy and crazy, just like Lewis Carroll intended it to be. Live a little, just like Alice! Dive into it! I ended up imagining I was Alice and walking in and out of these magical places for hours. What a druggy film - the caterpillar, a thousand references, sentences mangled and regurgitated as inspired poetry, rainbow colours, hundreds of characters, the list goes on.

I love this film! Watch it! Lock yourself away with it!

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5 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
Wonderful, wonderful!, 12 September 2004

Author: Srya_Medalkeyen from Anaheim, CA

I have only one complaint, and that is that they mixed the two books; but eh, they all do that. I think I'm the only one who is writing two separate scripts, one for each book. Seriously though, it's a very good rendition. They gave it more of a plot, but it works. And what casting! Goodness! I love the Knave of Hearts, he's a riot.

All in all, there is only that one complaint. I mean, Alice's hair color is even correct! (the real Alice was a brunette)

One last comment, just something that they did that didn't particularly bother me, but might bother some: Alice was older in this, maybe thirteen, fourteen?

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3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Gorgeus, 28 April 2005

Author: marc_copil from Romania

It's brilliant, all the characters are beautiful and you will never forget them, once you'll see the movie. Miranda Richardson has made an excellent Queen, she's just adorable when she plays hysterical, and I'm upset that my English it's not enough developed, so I could tell you more about it. And Alice is at the right age and look to be perfect, naive and willing to learn but not to be pushed too hard into it, I will associate her face and looks with Lewis Carroll's Alice forever. The images in the movie, it's a complete fairy tale, but exiting enough for adult's too. If you forget about the childhood and the your playground this movie will remind you the days when every one of us could be an Alice in Wonderland .I can draw a million pictures from this movie, it's full of frames which you just had to frame it and put it onto your wall, and obtain a perfect painting

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3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
GREAT FILM, 23 April 2000
Author: claire51-2 from GREATER MANCHESTER UNITED KINGDOM

I have seen the film it was shown over the easter weekend here and it's great i have seen many of the different versions when I was a child but this one is great the puppets and special effects in just two hours they managed to get two books in and it wasn't that much different to the version made in the 1970's except that one was musical,but it's just the same except for the new bits added on to the story.

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2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Curiouser and Curiouser Cried Alice !, 18 June 2006

Author: John Bale from Australia

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

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