Alice in Wonderland (1985)

Best movie of this year hands down!

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

I really don't get the hype.

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

What should I start with? The good or bad side? Okay, let's get the things that don't work well for the movie out of the way.For starters, the SONGS!!!! Ugh! I'm sorry I find them way too cheesy and unnecessary! What's a rapping/tap dancing caterpillar doing here? The duchess and her cook botch the short song written in the book, forget Twinkle Twinkle Little Bat; it's not as interesting as the added song! Why does the Queen need a song to explain why she needs a reason to behead people; she needs no intro! But I'm going to have to say the song that bugs me the most is Ringo's song as the Mock-turtle. He sings about how "this" world doesn't have enough nonsense (not sure if he's referring to the 4th wall's world or Wonderland). If he's referring to our world, fine, but at the same time what concern does he have about our world? He's carefree in Wonderland! If he's referring to Wonderland then I could strangle the lyric writers! Wonderland is abundant in nonsense! Everyone there is MAD! Not one person there is not mad (except maybe for Alice). The songs aren't the only things that annoy me. Alice goes to Wonderland and there are very not so subtle hints about teaching her how to grow up and face her fears. Wonderland was an escape from reality; not a return to it. I won't scream at the costumes or special effects because there's no point in 1985, however I'll bring up this childhood killer; the Griffin mentions the Queen beheading is not real. I know we would like that, but that was part of what made Wonderland exciting and a tad bit scary; heck she sings a whole song about it and a trial's going on to determine whether or not they should sentence the Knave of Hearts for stealing the tarts!Okay, so let's get down to what is good. They've got a proper aged Alice (6-8 years) and she's not too bad, though I'm not sure if the Alice in Wonderland dialogue fits her well. Some of the actors are good, though I like the Queen of Hearts (her song ruins her), and as much as I hate to say it, the White Knight is likable and his song is nice and soothing. I know his long song from the original story gets botched too, but this song is heartwarming and relaxing after trauma Alice went through. It's cheesy, but it's mildly okay.

I remember seeing this version of Alice in Wonderland as quite a young child (around six) and thought that it was fantastic. Having passed the 20 mark, I decided to look at it again, and I regret doing so. Not that it tarnished any sentimental childhood memories; I honestly felt that I wasted my time. Aside from perhaps some cheap direct-to-video animated versions, this probably ranks as the worst adaptation of "Alice in Wonderland" I have ever seen. It comes across like some blind attempt at creating a latter-day "Wizard of Oz" or "Mary Poppins", and it completely fails.It at least annoys me that they didn't get a British Alice, but some cutesy American girl. Even Walt Disney, king of Americanisation, understood that Alice should be portrayed by a British actress. A contrived attempt at depicting Alice's nationality comes from a single framed picture of Queen Victoria hanging up on the wall in her house at the beginning.In any case, the story progresses in the traditional manner: a girl named Alice follows a white rabbit down a mysterious hole and into a strange fantasyland home to the Mad Hatter, the Queen of Hearts and other funnies. "Through the Looking Glass" is also featured, linked to the Wonderland sections by an encounter with the Jabberwock. With practically all the characters invented by Carroll appearing, many of them often ignored by other filmmakers, you might be mistaken for thinking that, despite an American Alice, this adaptation is pretty faithful. This is hardly the case, however, as the tone of the original is alarmingly distorted.Anybody who is familiar with Lewis Carroll's original books will remember "Alice in Wonderland" being anarchic, rarely sentimental in the traditional sense and above all means not didactic. Equally, the best adaptations, from the 1966 BBC film to theDisney classic, don't necessarily follow the original narrative completely; they instead re-interpret the material but stay true to the overall tone to achieve their own filmic equivalent. This version of "Alice in Wonderland", however, comes across more as a wannabe "Wizard of Oz" intent, and tones down the original's anarchy into a moralising story about Alice growing up so that she can have tea with the grown-ups. The characters, many of them sadly played by a good number of normally talented actors and actresses, will suddenly jump from acting somewhat akin to the grotesque verse-reciting loonies of Carroll into behaving like creations bent on teaching how Alice can mature. Moreover, they usually do so through horrible songs. The use of the Jabberwock as a personification of Alice's childhood fears is equally as stupid, as is the constant use of artificial thrill moments and cheesy science-fiction sound effects. In fact, the production values on the whole are pretty dire. The sets seem lifeless and go overboard on fake plants. Most of the costumes look like they were hired from a fancy-dress shop, and, some of them look like they were made by six-year olds. For example, the Jabberwock looks like he's made of latex, and the oysters from "The Walrus and the Carpenter" look like people who got stuck in beach party props.I understand that there are thousands of Americans out there who adore this version on the grounds of nostalgia, and by no means am I trying to wreck their childhood memories by trashing this film. However, as far as everyone else is concerned, I'd say that it's best worth avoiding. From every point of view, it's well and truly a bad, tacky, dated piece of fluff.

I saw this movie years ago with my then 5 year old and we loved it. I thought Natalie Gregory was wonderful as Alice. Usually Alice is played by girls who appear to be about 16 years old. Alice is supposed to be 7 and Natalie Gregory was 9 when this was filmed. The movie is in two parts with the second called "Alice Through the Looking Glass" The supporting cast includes many old time actors such as Carol Channing, Steve Allen, Jayne Meadows, Ann Jillian, Martha Raye, Imogene Coca and more. It was a delight just to see them again. They were all marvelous in their roles, especially Ann Jillian as the Red Queen. I've always liked her in anything she's done. The movie did veer from the book in several areas but most movies do. Most of the songs were good but one or two kind of dragged. However it really did not take away from the enjoyment of the movie. I loved the costumes.Overall this is a fun movie to watch and a wonderful adaptation of the classic story. I highly recommend it.

Producer Allen was either the most amiable man in Hollywood or else paid the best salaries or else had major blackmail material on half the town in order to enable him to amass the incredible all-star casts that he put together in the 70's and early 80's. Here, taking a break from the fully exhausted disaster genre for which he was famous, he made this two-part telefilm based on the books of Lewis Carroll. Gregory plays a petulant little girl who dreams her way into the wacky and confounding world known as Wonderland, first through a rabbit hole and later through a mirror. While there, all the time striving to get home, she comes upon all manner of creature and a variety of royalty (based on cards and chess pieces) who make life difficult and/or confusing for her. Part one is the more familiar tale (immortalized on film many other times, but perhaps most notably in an animated Disney version) while part two has more characters and is darker in tone (thanks mostly to a dragon called The Jabberwock which, while creaky and obviously phony to sophisticated older viewers, may be quite terrifying to youngsters!) Though all mini-series of the era featured huge casts of name actors, Allen really outdid himself here with a roster of performers who range from legendary to popular to unjustly notable. Sadly, the nature of the material and the set up of this project meant that the majority of them would not be given a great deal to do. Winters, for example, barely appears at all and has no lines to speak of. O'Connor is basically the same, which is a heinous waste of talent. Meadows, however, whose husband (Steve) Allen wrote the songs for this, has a far more substantial role. While it's fun to play "Spot the Star" and see them all decked out in their often outrageous clothing and make-up, most of the time the film falls flat and the guest stars don't really shine so much as show up. Standouts in the production include Jillian and Channing who, fortunately, have very significant roles in the second half and who perform with gusto. Newley seems quite right for his blustery and veddy British character as well. It's nice to see Davis still going at it as well. Bridges injects some heart into his role. It doesn't get much campier than Lawrence and Gorme as Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee! Apart from the script simply devoting more time to some really unmemorable songs (as compared to the unforgettable ditties "I'm Late" and "The Unbirthday Song" from the animated version) than to the acting scenes, the primary liability is Gregory. The entire project hinges on having just the right person as Alice and this little girl is agonizing. She's a pretty decent singer and quite a capable little dancer, but her acting is atrocious and her whiny, sing-song speaking voice is like daggers to the ear. Besides this, she's charmless when she should be ingratiating and she's snotty when she ought to be sympathetic. She's just not a likable persona in this role. The script sets her up for failure by having her constantly recap to herself everything that is transpiring and this gets old very fast. The costumes for this production are fairly extravagant, as is the make-up, but the sets are almost all Astroturf and silk flowers with a fake sky backdrop. Incidentally, this film reunites at least five cast-mates from "The Poseidon Adventure" and three from "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure", though most of them do not interact with one another. It's colorful and worth a look, especially for star-gazers, but a lot of it is tiresome and uninspired.