Alice in Wonderland (VHS)

While I may have seen it as a child, I have no recollection of Walt Disney's Alice in Wonderland. So one night we had a "girls night in" and I watched it for the first time with my daughters, 5 1/2 and almost 4.

Curiouser and Curiouser - Why Reinvent a Classic?
My oldest daughter and I are currently working our way through Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the book on which this movie is partial based as well as Alice Through the Looking Glass. I hoped seeing some of the characters and plot lines brought to life through animation might increase her enjoyment of the book. Unfortunately this movie bears little resemblance and has none of the charm of the original text.

This movie is little more than a collection of seemingly unrelated events, strung together into 75 minutes of flashing colors. There is no plot to speak of, the main character, a young proper British girl by the name of Alice falls asleep while she is supposed to be listening to her lessons. In her dream she follows the White Rabbit down a hole into a world of nonsense. By taking the concept of nonsense to the extreme I suppose the lack of a storyline might actually fit quite well. Alice wanders around in her dream world and encounters many strange and imaginary creatures along the way. She does little to interact with most of them; she is more of an observer in many scenes. And when she (and the audience) have had enough of one creature she wanders off for another encounter

The movie jumps back and forth between the two books plus tosses in a rather long sequence of its own invention. However, with a lack of plot, the bouncing around doesn't seem to matter much. The Disney writers simply took what they liked from the books and left the rest. Unfortunately what they chose to leave was the charm, and I believe the intent of the book. In the book Alice is often frightened by Wonderland's mixed up ways, yet through it all she remains a strong and likeable protagonist. She is determined to make her way through Wonderland. In this film version Alice is rather timid and whiney and cries for wanting to go home. This changes Alice's character quite a bit and not for the better. Since Alice's breakdown occurs during the added scene, there is no doubt that it was purposefully done by the writers, not just happenstance caused by the enormous editing of the original tale.

But Can it Stand on its Own?
I found it difficult to erase my knowledge of the original books from my mind. But that is where my 4 year old comes in. She has not yet heard any of the original books so her viewing experience is along the lines of what you see is what you get. She generally has no trouble watching an entire movie, but at about the half way point she became quite fidgety and talkative. At first she questioned the movie, "How did Alice get there?" and "What happened?" but then on to random chit-chat. She had little interest in the movie.

There are certainly some scenes that got my girls laughing. Alice growing so large as to take up the entire house was worthy of some chuckles. The Cheshire Cat's ability to fade in and out of site garnered a few laughs too. Early on, the first few creatures seemed to capture my daughters' attention as well, but with nothing to hold the move together, even the animated fanciful creatures seemed to become rather ho-hum. Really, how often can you expect the 'Alice meets a funny looking creature who acts strange and then she runs away' formula to work in one movie? For my daughters the number was about four. Unfortunately that only took us to about the half way point of the film.

But there is more than the lack of plot and boring repetitive scenes to consider; there is also animation, voicing and music. Considering this was originally drawn in the 1950s the animation is good, but keeping in mind what can be done today, the it feels a little flat. Wonderland is a dream world, where anything can happen. In this movie it happens mostly on a black backdrop. While this is undoubtedly someone's attempt to depict a dreamlike world, it also made the movie visually dull. Lots of pinks, purples and reds are used but they don't pop off of the black, they tend to blend in.

Although the credits list a slew of voice over actors, it might as well have been just one. All of the characters sounded quite similar to me; from voice alone it would be hard to tell one from the other. I think the stale voicing just further added to the repetitive feel of the movie. Between the bland animation and dull voicing Carroll's characters are far less "alive" on screen than they are in the book.

I was not impressed by the use of song in this movie. Disney writers often use song for character development; a chance for the audience to explore their thoughts. The only character developed at all in Alice in Wonderland is Alice, and she doesn't have a song in the movie; although she does join in with the others from time to time. While the minor characters get a chance to share their musical talents, the songs here only serve to give us a slight detour from the scene formula. Nothing particularly memorable song wise came out of this movie.

Final Thoughts
If you are a fan of the books you will likely be disappointed in this plotless Disney version. But if you have never read the books you can still be disappointed in the flat animation, undeveloped characters, lack of plot and repetitive scenes. While I am sure most Disney fans will add this one to their collection anyway, for the casual viewer you won't be missing out on anything by skipping Alice in Wonderland.