Alice (2009) Review

                                           

Welcome to a whole new Wonderland. Hell yeah. I looked forward to this with great anticipation, especially since I've never read the original book nor seen any of the movies(though I did know about the plot and some of the characters).

Alice takes place during the modern day for both our world and Wonderland. Apparently, in the 150 years since the events of the book, Wonderland has evolved from a crazy, fun kiddie-land into a psychotic, dark industrial system which the Queen of Hearts rules by brainwashing and drugging people in a gigantic casino.

By accident, "Agent White" leads a new Alice into a new Wonderland where the girl is discovered to be carrying a special ring that controls the Looking Glass and, if fallen back into the Queen's hands would doom Wonderland forever.

The always-helpful Hatter teams up with Alice and an old, crazy White Knight to send the girl and the other "Oysters" trapped in Wonderland back to their world and hopefully close the portal between them forever.

Let's start with the negatives. First of all, the pacing in the miniseries is just horrible. It starts- BAM we're in Wonderland BAM it's the Hatter! BAM we're running from the Queen BAM...

The story is given no time to sink in because we just keep moving from one place to the other. Some characters(read: Alice) were not given enough time to be fleshed out which is a pity because they are pretty likable. The romance between Alice and the Hatter also suffers because of the pacing and seems to come out of nowhere which is sad because the two had great chemistry together.

I really think the miniseries would've fared far better had there been an additional part. 

The next problem was the sound. It didn't seem nearly as bad in the second part, but in the first part, it was just too loud. The music completely wiped out the dialogue and when I put the volume up enough to hear it, the music kept pounding against my ears like a hammer.

The CGI was... fine. Nothing much to say. The Jabberwock wasn't bad at all and neither was Wonderland itself.

And now the positives. For starters, the Mad Hatter. Need I say more?

Secondly, the writing was incredibly well done, Wonderland's evolution(or devolution) was completely believable, the characters were realistic and very likable. You just wanted to see more of them. This should've been a TV series instead of a miniseries in my opinion. But you get what you get.

The camerawork was good, the acting was just brilliant from everybody.

My favourite characters in the movie were the Hatter and drs. Dum and Dee. Seeing those two John Locke-wannabes examining Alice will be classic.

The ending of the movie was a little bit... odd, but not too far-fetched.

All in all, it was a great sequel to a great story and I will surely watch it again someday.

I can easily recommend this movie to all people who don't know Alice in Wonderland and to all who do know Alice in Wonderland. It has spiked my interest in the original story which I *will* find out.

"Twinkle, twinkle little bat... how I wonder where you're at."