This live-action/green screen and CG blend film acts as a sequel to the classic Disney animated feature, but is presented in a manner that even viewers who have not seen the cartoon will know exactly what's going on ... well, as much as you can in an Alice story. Like pretty much every version of an Alice story I've seen, Alice in Wonderland is actually a blend of both Carroll's original book and its sequel, "Alice Through the Looking Glass and What She Found There," though this film focuses a lot more on the second book as characters like The White Queen and Jabberwocky are very prominent.
Alice (Mia Wasikowska) is a precocious young lady who doesn't seem very satisfied keeping in her place as the rest of the ladies around her seem to be. Instead of being interested in getting married to a wealthy family and becoming a loving wife, she is far more interested in going against the norm, and when her strange dreams involving white rabbits and an odd world start bleeding into the real world, she decides to pursue the impending adventure. Soon, the hunt of a white rabbit in a blue vest causes young Alice to fall into a hole under a tree.
At this point, we get the idea that this isn't Alice's first time in the strange world, but our heroine doesn't seem to remember it at all, and she doesn't think she is the exact Alice the citizens of Wonderland are looking for. Unfortunately, she's the only Alice they have as Frabjous Day quickly approaches. You see, in the years since Alice last visited the strange world, The Red Queen's (Helena Bonham Carter) reign has become more violent and she has even used her pet monster, the Jabberwocky, to incite fear in the world and banish her younger sister, The White Queen (Anne Hathaway), to a far off castle. It has been foretold that on Frabjous Day, Alice would return to Wonderland and remove the dragon-like threat so that The White Queen could reign once again.
Alice's new adventure in the strange world is guided by the Blue Caterpillar (Alan Rickman), the Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry) and the Tweedle brothers, Tweedledee and Tweedledum (both played by Matt Lucas). These strange characters will send her to other familiar faces like the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), Dormouse (Barbara Windsor) and the March Hare (Paul Whitehouse). Alice's hope of finding out exactly what is going on is cut short though, when The Red Queen learns that a girl named Alice has returned and she is supposed to kill the queen's pet. With this news, she dispatches her loyal servant Stayne (Crispin Glover) to find and capture the girl before she has a chance to cause any problems for the big-headed queen.
Alice's journey across Wonderland will have her encountering jub jub birds, bandersnatches and even watching a bit of the odd form of croquet the citizens of this strange world seem to play, but it isn't until she finally starts to realize that the world isn't a dream and she might really be the Alice everyone is looking for that she gets the chance to see some of the stranger aspects of Wonderland, namely The White Queen's domain and the chessboard-like battlefield where she will have to face the large creature that is The Red Queen's major enforcer.
This Blu-ray/DVD/digital-copy release comes packed with tons of behind-the-scenes footage. The Wonderland Characters section of the special features contains six different featurettes totalling about 28 minutes of added content. These featurettes cover everything from Wasikowska trying to find her version of Alice, to Depp trying to identify with the Hatter (including trying to determine what the Hatter would look like). The featurette I exceptionally liked was the one about the search for someone who could Futterwacken (but first, they had to figure out what exactly "Futterwacken" was). It's also obvious just how green-screen heavy this film was since all of the extra footage has the actors sitting in a green screen room with minimal props around them.
The other half of the featurettes fall under the Making Wonderland header and add another 20 minutes to the extras and deal more with the technical side of the film's creation. Here are interviews with Composer Danny Elfman, Ken Ralston (Senior Visual Effects Supervisor) and many of the other people necessary to put together a film with such a unique style. For me, the behind-the-scenes segment about how the visual effects were made and how the CG artist deformed the various characters in post processing was the most intriguing of these featurettes.
Alice in Wonderland is a movie that absolutely takes advantage of the higher definition Blu-ray media. The exotic colors and style of Wonderland simply pop and make the movie awe-inspiring. As for the film's audio, the Blu-ray version of this film also allows for a solid surround sound experience, which comes in really handy during the movie's climactic battle. While this release contains Blu-ray, DVD and digital copies, it is a film best watched in high definition if you have the choice. It's simply best to leave the DVD version in the car for those road trips.
Alice in Wonderland is as strange and extraordinary as the pair of books it is based on, and the ability to make it a semi-sequel to the classic Disney animated feature, but still completely stand-alone, really makes it an enjoyable experience for all. Alice in Wonderland is a must have for any family-friendly movie collection, as it will simply be enjoyed by all.
