DVD Reviews

Alice (2009 Miniseries) - Blu-ray Review

By Jeff Swindoll Mar 2, 2010, 18:34 GMT

Abandoned by her father as a child, the independent twenty-one-year-old Alice is accustomed to men being unpredictable, but Jack Chase is something else. Just moments after surprising her with a rare family ring, he\'s suddenly kidnapped by two thugs and driven into darkness. It is then that Alice is confronted by a sharply dressed stranger who calls himself White Rabbit, and who promises to know more about Jack than she. ...more

The misspelled channel (SyFy) decided to drop down the rabbit hole.  I’m sure the upcoming Tim Burton spectacular didn’t hurt their decision to green light this series. This re-imagining is more akin to Tin Man than Lewis Carroll’s Victorian fantasyland.  

Alice (Caterina Scorsone) is a judo instructor.  She lives with her mother (Teryl Rothery) and her father went missing years ago.  Her boyfriend Jack Chase (Philip Winchester) has given her a ring, but he’s soon kidnapped and taken through the looking glass.  The tough Alice naturally follows and finds herself in Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland. 

It turns out that Jack is actually the Jack of Hearts, son to the dictatorial Queen of Hearts (Kathy Bates) and passive King of Hearts (Colm Meaney) who rule Wonderland.  The inhabitants of Wonderland crave emotions; in fact they’re addicted to them.  The Queen uses the ring of Wonderland to pass through the looking glass into our world and kidnap people, dubbed Oysters, to have them play in her playing card themed casino, engineered by the Carpenter (Timothy Weber), and have their emotions drained to be sold to the populace. 

It happens that Alice has been given that ring and that soon they won’t be able to pass into our world and feed those addictions.  Alice makes an allies in the Mad Hatter (Andrew Lee Potts), the nutty White Knight (Matt Frewer), leaders of the resistance Caterpillar (Harry Dean Stanton) and Dodo (Tim Curry), but faces opposition from the Queen’s party, her evil twin doctors Dee and Dum (Eugene Lipinski), and her robotic assassin Mad March.  Along the way she may also find out what happened to her missing father.  

Alice is brought to you by the team that was responsible for the SyFy miniseries Tin Man.  That production took a look at Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz.  This time around we look in on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and are given a science fiction twist. 

Wonderland has evolved over the years since Alice’s first visit and has developed a darker society, not that it wasn’t plenty dark the first time around.  Tin Man was given three episodes to unspool, but Alice is only given two.  So there is a feeling of being rushed in the second half.  Both of them do have their charms but Alice feels more of a stepchild than Tin Man.  That doesn’t mean that it’s not watchable. 

I’m just thinking that the rush may have been on to get it onto television to coincide with the Alice frenzy caused by the Tim Burton/Johnny Depp version (more reviews are coming of different versions).  Besides from that second half slump, I found Alice an interesting take on the material. 

It’s not meant to supersede Carroll’s work and exists as if the book happened and this vision of Wonderland had continued on from that first visit (with many characters asking if our judo fighting Alice is THE Alice of legend). 

The inhabitants of Wonderland are decidedly human and don’t dress up as animals as productions usually do.  It’s a fun sci-fi (did I spell that right?) diversion and is the most watched original SyFy movie since Tin Man.  The Blu-ray looks lovely to boot.

Alice is presented in a 1080p high definition transfer (1.78:1).  If you look under special features you’ll only find a bookmark function.  Disappointing, but if you look further under “setup” you’ll discover a commentary by director Nick Willing and Scorsone.  The Mad Hatter must’ve designed the menu. 

Alice doesn’t live here anymore, but she did visit 150 years ago.  Since she’s left the land has gone to hell under the Queen’s rule.  What our other Alice finds is a dark, science fiction landscape that’s ultimately a fun way to kill 3 hours.  

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