Even though I have been a long time Alice In Wonderland fan, my obsession with it went dormant for years until December of 2009 when the Syfy channel premiered its new miniseries "Alice". It's been six months since it premiered, and I still have Wonderland on the brain probably too much of the time ;)
In case you missed it, Alice was made by the same people who did Tin Man for Syfy, which was a Wizard of Oz re-imagining. Alice is also a re-imagining but also a sequel of sorts. In it, Wonderland has evolved into a very different place from when Alice Liddell visited it, and now Alice Hamilton, a young woman, is having her own adventures in Wonderland, with familiar yet re-vamped versions of the characters from the books. Whether they're descendants or ageless, evolved versions of the characters from the books is a little unclear. I'm hoping a sequel will be made with some explanations about some of the plotholes in the miniseries. For example, in "Alice", Hatter and Mad March [Hare] are rivals, which wasn't really explained or explored as much as I would've liked, considering they were good friends in the books.
What makes the miniseries so great is the budding romance between Alice and Hatter. Hatter in this version is a young man, not much older than Alice, and though they argue a lot they have great chemistry together. The Mad Hatter has always been my favorite character in Alice in Wonderland, and the new re-vamped version played by Andrew Lee Potts is just brilliant. Not only is he good-looking and charming, he's also very funny and brings a lot of life and emotion not only to his role, but to the movie in general.
The cast is pretty great in this. Matt Frewer plays the comical and lovable White Knight, and plays the character very well. Kathy Bates plays the Queen of Hearts, and is perfectly cast as such. She plays it a bit subtle for the Queen, but it works and Kathy Bates is just phenomenal in everything she's in. Tim Curry has a small part as Dodo. Now I love Tim Curry, I have since I was a kid, but I've always thought he'd make a perfect Cheshire Cat with his sort of trademark, mischievous grin, and I thought the Dodo role was a little bit of waste for him as an actor. But I always enjoy watching his performances.
Caterina Scorsone plays Alice, and I'll admit it took a couple times watching the film to warm up to her. The character is written in sort of a cold, stand-offish way, so it's a little difficult to feel much for her at first. As the movie progresses though, she becomes more likable.
There are great many homages paid to the book, and one of these days I'll make a list on this blog of the ones I can spot.
The movie was released on DVD/Blu-ray (in the States) back in March, so if you haven't seen it yet, look for it at your local video store. You can rent it at Netflix, and I recently heard that it's available in Redboxes as well. You can also purchase it at Amazon of course :)
The DVD/Blu-ray has a commentary with Nick Willing (writer/director) and Caterina Scorsone (Alice). I personally love commentaries, and I thought this one was pretty entertaining and funny at times. I only wish they could've gotten Andrew Lee Potts (Hatter) in on it. Also, the movie itself on the DVD has deleted scenes/extended scenes that weren't shown on Syfy. Makes little difference to those who missed the miniseries when it premiered, but if you watched it on Syfy, it's really great to see all the missing bits added back into the movie. I wish there had been more features, but maybe some day they'll release a special edition with more.
Well, that's all about the Syfy Alice...for now! Sorry this post was so long!
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