User Reviews

Lewis Caroll's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are classic stories, oddball and fairly difficult to adapt but colourful and quite magical. As a child my favourite adaptations were this and the Disney film(the first one I saw), and re-watching this 2-part version again it still is a favourite. It's not perfect, not all the casting(a vast majority do) and songs(maligned but not that bad, more hit and miss) work, and while the faithfulness to the stories is very admirable and pays off very well often some scenes can drag as a result of being a little too faithful.

The sets are very colourful and designed lovingly, with a mix of eeriness when down the rabbit hole and sumptuous colour with the Flower Garden. If there was a choice between in the Alice in Wonderland half and the Through the Looking Glass half, marginal preferences would go to Through the Looking Glass, the visuals are more vivid and the characters a little kookier. Some of the more memorable performances of the whole adaptation are in Through the Looking Glass too, and the pacing is a little more secure. The costumes are rather weird- Cheshire Cat, Bill the Lizard, the Oysters and Dodo Bird were among the worst cases. But the ones for Alice, White Knight, Red Queen and Queen of Hearts are very appropriate and there is a soft spot for White Rabbit's too. The atmosphere is a great mix of eerie, oddball, funny, whimsical and colourful.

And the dialogue is clever, faithful in spirit to the story, some of it is literally lifted out of the pages of the book(s). You do wish that the Mock Turtle's melancholic poem was left intact though. In regard to the story, it is mostly very well-adapted though a bit draggy in spots. Of individual scenes, faring best are the Mad Hatter tea party, the train scene, the Old Father William musical number, the trial, Jam Tomorrow, Jam Yesterday, the touching We Are Dancing and Emotions numbers and of course the first appearance of the Jabberwocky(as a child that was terrifying, and even to a 21-year old it was scary). The ending is also a tear-jerker. Some scenes didn't fare so well, I don't remember a single thing about the scene with the Mouse, Dodo and Lory Bird, the Caterpillar scene would have fared better with the whole thing about the mushrooms(it did seem a little pointless), the Lion and the Unicron scene is awkwardly staged and Ernest Borgnine seemed ill at ease and the Walrus and the Carpenter number is fun but suffers from cheap costuming.

Which brings us onto the songs and casting. The background scoring and orchestrations are excellent and beautifully done, the Overtures over the opening credits show real promise and the creepiness and whimsy that pulsates the scoring throughout are used most effectively. The songs have been maligned, and in a way understandably. There are some good ones, though some suffer from being too brief or too samey. The best way to describe the songs are hit-and-miss. The hits were Old Father William(with choreography that seemed to be paying homage to Shirley Temple); There's No Way Home is a beautiful song and sung in a way that is a mix of vocally understated Frank Sinatra and Burl Ives; the very poignant We Ae Dancing with some of the best visuals of the adaptation; the intimidating Off With their Heads and the riotous Jam Tomorrow, Jam Yesterday. There are a few misses though, I Hate Dogs and Cats is probably the most forgettable song in all senses in the entire adaptation; There's Something to Say as well as being quite badly sung is no better; Laugh is rather dull despite Anthony Newley's singing; Lion and the Unicorn is a tad repetitive and Nonsense lacks irony, is not as poignant as Caroll's Mock Turtle poem in the book and is somewhat contradictory too.

Most of the acting is fine, but like with the songs some don't work. Shelley Winters, John Stamos and Donald O'Connor are wasted; Donna Mills is competent if unmemorable; Telly Salavas is too sympathetic for Cheshire Cat; Scott Biao performs with no real feeling or understanding of his few lines; Beau Bridges is a somewhat effeminate Unicorn; Ernest Borgnine looked uncomfortable as the Lion and Jonathan Winters is rather dull as Humpty Dumpty. Natalie Gregory however is a very endearing Alice, carrying the adaptation very well and charmingly and with spunk. The cast are like a Who's Who and it's really fun to spot. These were the performers that stood out. Sammy Davis Jnr plays Caterpillar with great personality and firmness and still is a great singer and dancer, the White Rabbit of Red Buttons is suitably jittery, Carol Channing is a riot as the White Queen, Robert Morley's King of Hearts is probably definitive, Lloyd Bridge's White Knight is chivalrous and meaningful, Jayne Meadows is a genuinely intimidating Queen of Hearts and Ann Jillian's Red Queen is performed with real gusto and menace(she also sings Emotions wonderfully).

And we also have Ringo Starr's melancholic Mock Turtle, Jack Warden's Wise Owl, Karl Malden's stuffy Walrus, Harvey Korman's imposing White King, Anthony Newley's very funny Mad Hatter, Arte Johnson's nervous Doormouse and Roddy McDowell's twitchy March Hare. In fact, while some like Patrick Duffy, Sally Struthers and Pat Morita are merely cameo appearances, the acting is good enough. Tweedledum and Tweedledee are great fun too, and isn't that Jabberwocky scary or what? Overall, along with Disney's it is one of the best adaptations of the book and is the most faithful to the book(s), Nick Willing's 1999 adaptation is faithful too. 8/10 Bethany Cox

As a two-part miniseries with a length of about three hours, this adaptation of Lewis Carroll's beloved classics doesn't need to rush the story, allowing us to see pretty much every scene and character from the stories, including rarely seen ones like Pat, the Fawn, the Man in the Paper Suit, the Goat, the Gnat, Humpty Dumpty, the Horse, the Sheep, and the Owl. (Two of these characters, for some reason, swap the acts they appear in: the Owl is a character from the first book, but appears in the second act, and the Fawn is a character from the second book, but appears in the first.) Indeed, the only scene missing that I can think of is the Giant Puppy scene, which is somewhat disappointing, but excusable.

But with that being said, the rest of this movie really gets my nerves, especially the first act: for one thing, very few of Carroll's poems appear, and all the songs in this musical are "Americanized" and modern. This wouldn't be so bad if the film was meant to be a modern riff on the stories, like the Hanna-Barbera T.V. film, BUT IT ISN'T. It is very clear that this, like the original books, is meant to take place in Victorian Age England. But here's the thing: ALMOST NO ONE IN THIS FILM IS British! The songs are all obnoxious, as well as "Americanized," and have very little to do with Carroll's text, and, again, with the exception of "You Are Old, Father William," and "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat," none of the poems from the first book appear. The second act is just as guilty, but at least "The Walrus and the Carpenter" appears and is fairly enjoyable, and the ending tune is very sweet, and even a bit heartbreaking.

The casting is all over the place: In the first act, the Mad Hatter is played by Anthony Newley, whose rude and grumpy performance hardly makes him laughable (especially odd since his song is titled "Laugh"), and he comes off rather unlikeable. Jayne Meadows as the Queen of Hearts, as well as Martha Raye's Duchess, aren't regal, or even stuck-up...they're just straight up sadists whose accents make them sound like the Marry Murderesses from "Chicago." Scott Baio as Pat especially bothers me: he speaks Carroll's text word for word, but doesn't bother at even attempting an accent, and his flat, highly-rehearsed tone almost makes it sound like he has a speech impediment. The second act isn't much better: Carol Channing as the White Queen is particularly atrocious, and Jonathan Winters is exceptionally dull as Humpty Dumpty.

Now, there are some good performances: Robert Morley is my favorite King of Hearts, and Red Buttons and Roddy McDowall aren't half bad as the White Rabbit and the March Hare. Lloyd Bridges as the White Knight in the second act is bumbling and chivalrous at once, and there's a distinct lovability to him, and a twinkle in his eyes. Not bad at all. Ringo Starr's "storyteller" voice, which any fan of "Thomas the Tank Engine" is probably familiar with, works well in his performance as the Mock Turtle. And, of course, Natalie Gregory isn't terrible at all: she's very sweet, yet determined, and her age (nine years old) in this film makes her to closest actress, age wise, I believe, to play the coveted role of Alice.

Even though the performances are sometimes okay, the costumes rarely are: most of the costumes worn in this film come off as cheap-looking and seem to have very little basis in Tenniel's praised illustrations. Bill the Lizard looks like something out of "Farscape," while the Jabberwock, played by Tom McLoughlin, is menacing, but somehow manages to look like a bad Godzilla costume at comic-con, with wings.

With the mention of the Jabberwock, another problem comes to mind: the designs of the scenery, and the tone of the movie, which go hand in hand. The first act can't seem to make up its mind whether it's dark or light: the rabbit-hole is no longer the fanciful parachute ride from Carroll's story, masterfully captured in other stories, but a terrifying free fall, which ends in a dank tunnel that, for some reason, has lightning and thunder inside it. The Queen's sadism makes her especially horrific, Jayne Meadows' sick, twisted expressions of hate, rage, and insane glee making her moments particularly disturbing...the audience starts to wonder: is this a kid's film, or a prototype for "American McGee's Alice?" The second act seems to have made up its mind: it's a light take on "Alice," but with dark moments...namely, whenever the Jabberwocky appears. The film even involves death: even though the King still pardons people in the first act, as in the books, in the second act, Humpty Dumpty is pushed off the wall by the Jabberwock, and presumably never repaired, and the White Knight dies trying to defend Alice from the same frumnious beast. (Or seems to...he reappears at the very end of the movie, so I guess he was just knocked senseless.) My overall opinion: this miniseries is enjoyable for some, and one of the darkest takes on Carroll yet, despite occasional bouts of typical, childish whimsy, but it's not for me. Still, it does retain 99% of the characters/scenes from the books, so that's something, even if most of the songs and poems are omitted. A good try...but a bad execution.