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Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: To odd, and a little boring
Review: We ranked this 33 out of 41 Disney animated movies that we own. We bought this movie and it was a mistake. The children watched it once and never again. There are so many good disney movies now available, this one is never requested by the kids for viewing.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Eschewed intellectual interpretation of Carroll's story
Review: "Alice in Wonderland" is a Disney animated feature that is better than its reputation. It is not as great as some of the Disney features that preceded it, such as "Snow White", "Dumbo", or "Pinocchio", but there is still considerable charm in the animation, story, and voice characterizations.

"Alice in Wonderland" is based on the 19th century Lewis Carroll book of the same name. The book was written as a satire. Disney has tried to put some of the satire into the film, but mostly emphasizes the silliness. There is strong appeal for both children and adults.

The beautifully animated but slightly chilly rendering of Alice's tale, aimed at a children's market for which Disney eschewed intellectual interpretations of Carroll's story, instead playing it straight as a storybook dream/nightmare.

All of Alice's adventures are in place, including her tea party with the Mad Hatter and friends, her meeting with the bewildering Cheshire Cat and her strange game of croquet with the temperamental Queen of Hearts, who is fond of beheading those who question her authority.

The animation is very good. In particular, the studio has a knack for splashing liquids, and there is great 'choreography' of dancing playing card soldiers.

The story does have an edge to it. The walrus eats the oysters, the crocodile eats the fishes, and the Queen beheads several playing cards. This is in keeping with the spirit of Carroll's writings, which have the useful moral that gullibility is punished.

The film is dazzling in its use of color and odd shapes and is enhanced by the distinctive voices of Ed Wynn as the Mad Hatter, Sterling Holloway as the Cheshire Cat, Jerry Colonna as the March Hare, and Verna Felton as the Queen of Hearts.

There are some slow parts to the story. Alice gets lost and cries. The audience is supposed to feel sorry for her, but this cold-hearted viewer merely lost interest. There is also a song that the flowers sing to Alice that gets a bit tedious.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Boring..Stupid..Confusing
Review: I saw this movie when I was little and I enjoyed it. Now I'm 13 years-old and when I recently watched it I relize how bad it is. I hate it. I don't know why...I just can't stand it. The charactors are annoying, especially Alice. The whole movie she's whining about going back home. Urgg! I got so sick of hearing her whine and complain I almost turned the movie off! The other charactors are stupid, the songs are bad, and the plot is boring and confusing.
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If you want to see a good fantasy movie, I recommend the original 1939 movie, The Wizard of Oz.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: this movie is based on drugs
Review: This movie was created by junkies and they created whatever their drug infested minds could concoct

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I love this movie!
Review: Several people claim that Disney's Alice In Wonderland has no plot. That's not true. The plot is like so: A little girl gets lost, and must find her way back home (in a dream). It is never confuisng, but weird things are supposed to happen--the whole movie is the dream of a 7 1/2 year old girl!! WEIRD STUFF IS GONNA HAPPEN!!

I love the songs in this movie! Golden Afternoon, sung by the flower bed, used to be my favorite Disney tune ever. Kathryn Beaumont has a splendid voice, perfect for Alice (and eventually
Wendy in Peter Pan). The caterpillar may be slightly annoying, but he's still cool.

The mad hatter and march hare are very amusing. Their wild tea party is so random, that it forces Alice to claim, "This is the STUPIDEST tea party I've ever been to." The Queen of Hearts and the Cheshire cat are also very funny.

And this is a note to all those fussing, worrying mothers who think the scene where the "cute" little oysters die is, and I quote, "inappropriate for children": GET A LIFE!! Do you want your kids to grow up thinking that every single thing in a movie has to end happily ever after?! If you force-feed your kids the typical disney happy film, do you think they'll ever learn anything?! GEEZ!

Bottom line: this is a MUST for all Disney and Lewis Carroll fans. And may I say, the movie is far more interesting than the books that its based upon (even though they were good).

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Gets better with each passing year!
Review: I first viewed this film at age four (its 1951 premiere showing). The film was then a pure joy, and I still regard it as one of Walt's underrated masterpieces.

Some say that Alice doesn't have "heart" (including Walt himself!), but I disagree. The Alice character, as represented in this movie, is indeed true to the mood of the original story. Certainly, this Disney version is a greatly truncated amalgam of Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass" and his "Alice in Wonderland", but the result is charming and an example of animation art at its most imaginative.

I strongly recommend this film on DVD. Please be aware that Disney has tentatively scheduled a "Special Edition" DVD release of this movie in early 2004, so you might wish to wait awhile.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Impossible!
Review: This movie makes me nervous and annoyed sometimes, but it is fun in other scenes! I like the little cat the best. My favorite scene is with the mad hatter and the rabbit. A classic to add to your collection!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Delightful
Review: This is a most amazing film, full of colour and vision, and filled with delightful characters.
I love the psychedelic effect, which is probably a bit ahead of its time being a precursor to the 60's style.
Alice is brought to life, in an amazing way for an animated character, and she is quite appealing.
The scene opens with Alice (read by Kathryn Beaumont) lying on branch of a tree with her cat Dinah, being read a dull history lesson, by her stuffy older sister.

She begins to think about how her world would be like...before being distracted by a White Rabbit, who is late for a very important date...

The effects large and small are remarkable and no small detail is left out.
I love the way Dinah waves at her with her little paw when Alice is falling down the hole.
The hazy world of the hookah smoking Caterpillar, the crazy antics of the disappearing and reappearing Cheshire Cat, and the total whimsy of the Mad Hatter and March Hare ,are all captured exactly the way, I think, Lewis Carroll intended it to be.

Alice interacts with just the right balance to all of these characters and creatures.

You can watch this again and again, and unlike some of the other Disney movies, you always pick up something new each time.

And there are indeed lessons to be learned from this movie.
For one thing alice always persevers to get out of this Crazyland. She shows a lot of intitative in trying to do so , and never gives up.

And we can all learn from the words of the Cheshire Cat.
When Alice asks him where she should go , he replies "That depends on where you want to get to"
We all need to first decide where we want to get to , before we decide which road to take.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Underappreciated and overlooked
Review: Right from the stunning (hand drawn!) opening sweep of a verdant riverbank on a lazy summer's day, "Alice in Wonderland" is one of the most beautifully animated of the Disney films of the 1950s. Unfortunately, this film has always been one of the most maligned in the Disney canon.

Many books on the subject of Disney's animated films will often only devote a paragraph or two to the film, and in that short paragraph it will invariably mention how "Alice" was a financial flop, how Walt Disney himself wasn't very fond of it, how it's a chilly film. I don't find this film chilly, I find it refreshingly free of sentiment or cliche that can often weigh down other Disney films.

To start with, we have Alice. Unlike Cinderella or Snow White, Alice has a lot of personality. Who among us hasn't been very frustrated that Cinderella just took all the abuse from her stepmother and sisters and was powerless? Alice, on the other hand, is not one of the "shy little violets" and operates on more than just one emotion; she gets mad, befuddled, disgusted, amused, angry and, best of all, she stands up to adults (how odd for the 50's) and tells them when they are being ridiculous. This film has a subversiveness that may have been unintentional in showing how the world of adults, with its rules and logic, can be purely nonsense and that a child can be the only sane person in the lot. (To be fair, this sentiment is in keeping with Lewis Carroll's original books.)

Alice is beautifully voiced by Kathryn Beaumont (who did a similarly excellent job as the voice of Wendy in "Peter Pan" a few years after.) The real appeal of Alice here is that unlike many other Disney heroines,Kathryn Beaumont was a young girl when she recorded the voice and therefore, Alice looks and sounds like a girl of a certain age. Contrast that to Mary Costa's voice and the animated figure of Sleeping Beauty who looks as if she could be a 1950s pinup model despite only being 16.

The story itself is a wild trip through an ever shifting dreamscape most notable for the wild color schemes that anticipate the 1960's motifs. This is not implying that "Alice in Wonderland" is one big drug reference; it is not. Many people who worked on this film have commented that it felt like the film was getting away from them, that the characters took on lives of their own. This is evident as the film just gets wilder and wilder as it goes on with the introductions of the most bizarre and colorful characters Disney ever brought to life.

The only real flaws in the film include a scene when Alice breaks down and berates herself for never following her own advice, this moment stops the film cold in the middle of what has been a non-stop thrill ride. The extremely abrupt ending of the film is a very strange choice. I think even an extra 20-30 seconds between Alice and her sister at the conclusion of the film would have made the film a little stronger.

The DVD has some interesting extras, but again, I feel that the Disney studios still do not have a high regard for this film and just threw it together on DVD. I have heard that the LaserDisc version had many more interesting extras, and it would be my hope for this film to get a rerelease on DVD with some more extras restored.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: It's Okay!
Review: Alice In Wonderland is good but not my favorite animated Disney movie but it's a movie I would definitely watch again or maybe buy on DVD but only on sale or used, I wouldn't want to pay full price for it.


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