A Man. And His Blog.

SyFy's re-imagining of "Alice in Wonderland" aired in December 2009

SyFy’s take of Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” takes place in Wonderland 150 years after the original “Alice’s” visit, and is an outlandish city of twisted towers and casinos built out of playing cards, all under the rule of the Queen of Hearts (Kathy Bates). The White Rabbit (Alan Gray) is part of a secret organization, works for the Queen of Hearts and abducts people from the real world (referred to as “Oysters”), so they can gamble in the Queen’s casino. Once people are kidnapped, they are sedated and forced to play in the casino so their emotions can be drained by the Queen. These drained emotions have a drug-like effect on the people of Wonderland. The Queen keeps people under control by sedating them with elixirs that provide an instant fix of emotions as a way to pacify them when they become too unruly.
Twentysomething Alice Hamilton (Caterina Scorsone) finds herself in Wonderland after chasing after her boyfriend Jack (Philip Winchester), who was kidnapped by the White Rabbit. She soon enlists the help of an array of characters including the resistance fighter Hatter (Andrew Lee Potts), resistance leader Dodo (Tim Curry), and Charlie, the White Knight (Matt Frewer), after Alice has an odd-looking ring in her possession, which serves as the gate-opener between Wonderland and the real world – a door the Queen of Hearts wishes to open…

Part 1
Okay, I kinda was expecting a … let’s say, “own”, interpretation of Alice in Wonderland, but what I saw here had almost nothing to do with the Wonderland story. Even though it is more of a sequel of the 150-year-old children’s story, it could have been a complete different miniseries with a complete different story and complete different characters. To bring the characters from Alice in Wonderland into this story wasn’t even necessary. I don’t even know how to review the first part properly without trash-talking about it – because I didn’t like any of the stories, any of the character, the actors look kinda bored and I don’t have even the slightest interest in this miniseries. Maybe it is because I was awaiting more “Alice in Wonderland” (and can’t live with this version of a future-themed sequel), maybe it is because I was expecting a bit more from a SyFy series (even though I had no reason to do that), maybe it is because I like Caterina Scorsone, even though I hate anything she starred in, including “Missing”. So, the first part couldn’t wow me. Not at all.
It already begins with the characters, who are written in a stereotype way, and are not really surprising. Alice is too much of a naive grown-up, who doesn’t know what is going on, but soon has to save the world (Wonderland and the real world), the Hatter is way too much a beauty and could have been cast with a simple male model to bring the female viewers to his side (and probably Alice as a possible love interest – but wait, Alice has a boyfriend…), I don’t really like Charlie as a character, because he is as annoying as the rest of the Wonderland people, who have expressions like Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future, when he is about to give his “Great Scott” – sometimes it is just way too much and I have the feeling to see a show for the children between two and seven years old. And I know how such shows are looking, because I was watching them with my nephew.
Alice’s journey through Wonderland was okay. Of course her boyfriend Jack is the son of the Queen of Hearts (I hope this little twist will bring something to the story), of course Alice’s father, who disappeared years ago, has something to do with Wonderland (and probably is in Wonderland, waiting for a reunion with his daughter – I hope this story ain’t coming, because it is totally stereotype), of course Alice runs through Wonderland, escaping the Queen of Hearts and trying to save her own life. The scene in the woods, with the dinosaur-like monster was laughable – I was laughing here, because this scene showed that “Alice” doesn’t want to be a re-imagination of “Alice in Wonderland”, instead just a fantasy show.
The visual side of the first part is alright. I can’t really begin something with the “city look” in Wonderland, and I had to roll with my eyes, when I saw the casino. Sometimes I thought the producers were doing way too much with Wonderland, and it didn’t have much to do with the characters’ journey. The score of the first part was terrible though, together with the scenes and cheesy dialogues, the score was annoying as hell, and I had to tune the volume down, because o the very loud and supposed-to-be bombastic score – but that is always a problem in miniseries like this. The connection of film score and dialogue/scenes is never really good, when the composer is not a pro.
Long review, short result: I didn’t like it. Some parts were good, most parts were uninteresting. Maybe it would have been better not to sequel “Alice in Wonderland” and instead developing an own past for Wonderland. 4/10

Part 2
Okay, I don’t know what to write about it, except that it seriously bored me. I was bored while watching it, I never paid much attention about what is happening on the screen, and I still can recall every single story of the second part. And, again, the writers went completely off of the Alice story and told a complete different story, which lets me ask why the producers even wanted to try an Alice re-imagining. Here it begins with the suit wearers, who have guns, run after our heroes and try to kill them, while flying on wind surfing ducks (I don’t know how to call them); the next thing is the Hatter, who gets really mad in here and throws some punches. And of course Alice: We already know she has some judo skills, and it was so predictable that she will use them one day – and she did in one ridiculous and supposed-to-be-not-funny-yet-funny scene.
The second part has even more problems to find a real story than the first one. The characters are still touring from one place to another, as if they were on the run from death; they didn’t develop during the second part and never got interesting (Alice transforms into an action heroine with the talent of using a weapon, while crying after her father, I was rolling with my eyes a lot; Jack just said he loves Alice, but his whole background story is missing; the Hatter and Charlie are just usable sidekicks with a few good one-liner and nothing more; the Queen is full of stereotypes and can’t get over her bossy behavior); the story about the Looking Glass and its mysterious ring completely went by without getting important during the final parts; and I had the feeling that the pretty looking cast only found its work, because they are pretty and the direct aim to get the targeted audience (young people) into the net. And together with lots of CGI and a pretty looking British Columbia, the writers could lose the story, so that the producers could deliver awesome looking pictures. And yeah, the CGI was alright for a miniseries like that. Battlestar Galactica did better, but at least the visual effects are increasing and the studios are learning on that matter.
Maybe it was intended for Alice to be a (very) bizarre trip through the very bizarre future-Wonderland with all those sci-fi and fantasy elements. But I couldn’t think of any reason, why somebody would call it an Alice re-imagining. The miniseries could have worked better without the past of Carroll’s classic, maybe it would have been better to tell an original story, filled with references of Wonderland. But we will never know, won’t we? I like Caterina Scorsone (still, she needs a better agent, she has lots of shit on her vita), Tim Curry goes down the steps of the great big world of Hollywood (and he should secure himself a TV role, before he vanishes completely), Andrew Lee Potts could be a new star in town, when he gets the proper roles, I don’t say anything against Kathy Bates, and Matt Frewer should end his career – I never could stand that guy.
Don’t get me wrong, Alice is not shitty and bad, it was just plain boring. And my expectations were completely different from what I finally saw – I wanted to see Alice, and not Year 3000 of a creepy, dark and cold Wonderland. 4/10

Average is exactly 4, which was not hard to get. I just hope that future miniseries based on childrens’ book will be better, and I hope the writers, producers and studios stay away from Alice for a few years, until somebody decides to remake the silent movie from 1903 and reanimate the silent movies (actually, that would be very cool).
From now on, I will split the miniseries from the usual series seasons. So, consider this the fourth miniseries I have watched. The next one will be a rewatch of Band of Brothers, and on the side there will be HBO’s The Pacific. I saw there was another Alice miniseries from 1985, maybe I will watch it, as long as I can’t bring my eyes on Tim Burton’s . Until then, V’s The Final Battle and a rewatch of Generation Kill are waiting for me…