Alice (2009)

Last year at this time I was writing about "Tin Man", a SyFy mini-series that was quite promising and offered a bit too less, despite a pretty nice story adaptation of the Frank Baum classic. This weekend I had the "inspiration" to choose the next "masterpiece" by the same director, Nick Willing, another rehash for SyFy Channel, of another classic story - "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Caroll. The good part is that this time Alice of Wonderland (Caterina Scorsone) doesn't rely exclusively on the blue eyes for the role, and she actually tries to act, unlike Dorothy of Oz (Zooey Deschanel). Further than this, let's see ...

As in the case of "Tin Man" we practically have a sequel to the story, with a mature main character, who follows pretty much the same steps: she lands in the parallel story universe, finds the destination in a desolate state under a tyrannical leadership, the tyrannical leadership ("The Queen of Hearts" in this case) finds out about the "intruder", all this is followed by the run + the detailed story (something happening while running) + the final in which the throne of the story world is taken by a less evil ruler. I didn't give any spoiler, trust me (= if you were imagining something else you should definitely look for another movie). Leaving the joke apart, the detailed context is actually quite original & sufficiently interesting to deserve the time. We have all the insertions of classic characters adapted to a sort of semi-industrialized Wonderland. Add to this a bit of romance, some soap-opera, and even an attempt of an "epic fight". I won't say anything more clear than this because it is the only part that makes the movie to deserve watching. Overall I would say that the atmosphere has something from Terry Gilliam keeping the proportions (I don't know why it made me think at a mix between "Brazil" and "Brothers Grimm"). Unfortunately, the director here is not Terry Gilliam ...

There are some good scenes, but there are also a lot of examples that besides looking like "very made for TV" are obviously mediocre. You have the impression sometimes that you're watching a sort of low budget indie made by a couple of fresh cinema graduates = no polishing, only one take as good as it gets and that's all. If we consider the effects we have the same issue as in "Tin Man" = they're not looking like 2009, fortunately they're not many either. I don't know, maybe I'm too demanding for a TV production. For sure, if I spend some time looking for some long-length fantasy series I will probably find something to be worse than what we've seen here (for instance I remember "Camelot" right now which was lame as production level). On the other hand I don't have to look too far to find something clearly above this level = also at SyFy we had "The Lost Room" & "5ive Days to Midnight". Even if these didn't seem to be exactly for big screen they were certainly on a different class than what we have here. I still have to give this "Alice" credit though, comparing it with the abomination produced by Tim Burton. What we have here, as it is, is definitely more recommendable to watch compared to the chaotic disaster in that movie.

Finally, as a personal wish I have to say that I yearn for a SciFi miniseries by SyFy (not a fantasy one, since from what I see they can't really handle well the production level on these), but unfortunately it seems that "Alice" was followed by .. "Neverland" directed by the same Nick Willing ... So, maybe when the "the classic stories" will end ...

Rating: 3 out of 5 (mostly for the story, too bad for the final result)

Better than the trailer ( especially since I wasn't very positive :) ):