Plot
Taking place 150 years after the events of the classic story Alice in Wonderland, Alice is a modern re-imagining of the classic story. When a woman named Alice shows up in Wonderland, she discovers that things have changed quite a bit since the original content. Wonderland is now filled with skyscrapers, casinos, and drugs based on emotions. The Queen of Hearts also rules the land with an iron fist. Will Alice be able to save Wonderland and also find her way home?
My Thoughts
In 2009 SyFy in conjunction with Showcase (Canada) created a mini-series called Alice. Alice is a modern take on the classic tale with quite a few sci-fi elements thrown into the story. I didn’t watch the mini-series live and didn’t check it out until having recently found the DVD for cheap. Not having particularly strong feelings for Alice in Wonderland, I didn’t know what to expect. Overall I thought Alice was pretty good, despite being kind of weird.
Outside of taking the same character names, Alice doesn’t share a whole lot in common with the original source material. Alice has quite a few different sci-fi elements in it. These elements take the storyline into some weird directions. For the most part I liked them though. They are pretty creative twists to the story that modernizes a classic story.
Overall I think the characters were pretty interesting. For the most part the mini-series does a good job of making Alice a strong female character. The Hatter (Mad Hatter) is significantly different from the source material and in my opinion that is a good thing. Instead of being the semi-crazy character from the original material, Hatter is actually pretty normal in Alice. Hatter is your typical troubled character that every show and movie has these days. The Queen of Hearts is essentially what you would expect (evil). The comedy relief character is the White Knight. While a little over the top at times, the White Knight is an interesting character. What I don’t really understand is why Tim Curry is so prominently advertised with the mini-series despite being in it for five minutes at max.
I would have to say that my biggest problem with Alice is that it seemed to have a little too much filler in it. Alice is slightly over three hours long but I think it could have been closer to two and a half hour. At times it just seems like scenes were added to just pad out the length.
The special effects are not too bad for a 2009 tv mini-series. They clearly aren’t perfect and are somewhat noticeable at times but you can’t expect a tv mini-series to have as good of special effects as a movie which has a lot larger budget. For a tv mini-series if the special effects aren’t particularly distracting, that is all I ask for.
Final Verdict
Overall I thought Alice was an above average mini-series. The mini-series has a unique take on Alice in Wonderland doing a pretty good job adding sci-fi elements to a classic fantasy story. The mini-series does have a little too much filler material but is otherwise an enjoyable experience.If you are interested in sci-fi/fantasy and are interested in a unique take on the Alice in Wonderland storyline, I think you will enjoy Alice.
