I very rarely see examples of successful film adaptations of popular books, when the directors & #39; see the book correctly, feel it - and get to the point. For watching this movie I took with caution, I confess honestly. Tim Burton’s famous film has already grossed millions in movie distribution, earned praise from critics, and even received a sequel. This, more obscure version of that little girl Alice who fell into the well, seemed to me at first a cheap remake. But the most surprising thing is that it is far from that.
In this mini-series, the main character lives in our ordinary modern world. But some circumstances already link it to that wonderland. This is a very unusual and interesting vision of the director, and in this film there is innovation in all the details of the fairy tale; I really liked the way they designed the magical world, prescribed old characters in a new way, and most importantly - wrapped in almost unchanged plot. The acting completely satisfied me, although in the executive lineup you will not see stars, but still. The plot does not stand still, something happens all the time - and it's cool!
Of the disadvantages, I will not even highlight anything. Of course, the computer technology of the end of zero leaves much to be desired, but I would not even dwell on it. The whole story looked fresh, interesting. Of course, with the effects and other technical details can not be compared to the version of Burton, but... This Alice is a very good film adaptation.
The only thing I think is that this film may not appeal to conservatives, or those who are used to Hollywood quality movies. Here the level is lower, but still I was pleased to put this ever-good and unusual fairy tale.
7 out of 10
Interpretations of fairy tales in a modern way always cause some degree of distrust: how much will the characters be changed, what will remain of the familiar world? And that makes it better when the interpretation works.
From the very beginning, even without knowing exactly, you could say that this series is primarily for TV, and therefore has a limited budget and time frame, so I was set up to evaluate it with this in mind. But, I must say, the story so imperceptibly, gradually and deeply attracted that it was simply forgotten for all those emotions that had to go through for two series.
Alice from the beginning seemed inexpressive, untale, but so it is: instead of a little girl who became a legend for the inhabitants of Wonderland, we see a completely modern, adult and independent girl who will not trust anyone while there are still doubts (even if this someone has already helped her). However, the world itself is now not like the one it was 150 years ago: feelings are bought and sold in it, and for this purpose Oysters, that is, ordinary people, are deprived of their own will. However, Alice remains Alice and not so in vain goes through the mirror, looking at a new universe for yourself with amazingly bright eyes.
The Hatter and the White Knight are beautiful from the very first seconds. If you had to get used to the game Katherina Scorson first to see the person, then Andrew Lee Potts and Matt Freuer, having barely had time to speak, are already able to conquer. By the way, it is the voices that are very important in this case: you should prefer the original audio track to hear how the Hatter’s mocking tone turns into a resentful and surprised one, and the Knight is intricate and very proudly presented.
It is better not to compare this series and Burton's film: they are different in purpose, essence and execution. I would say the first one was even better. Maybe just something closer. After all, who knows whether there is a mirror in the nearest warehouse that will become a guide to a completely different world for each of us?
10 out of 10
“Modernization” of classics at the level of films by Asylum Studio
If I had been told that of the two newest films based on Lewis Carroll’s fairy tale, this film would receive a higher rating than Tim Burton’s film (and indeed that such a film would receive a high rating), I would not have believed it. But I had to see with my own eyes such an injustice, when a cheap delusional film receives a rating higher than a real quality film adaptation. In fact, our people usually do not like free interpretations of their favorite books, especially when the action of the literary source in the film is transferred to the present. Our viewers can't stand it at all! But here the book was distorted, and the action of the novel was transferred to the modern world, and the viewer “ate”. If this film had not been released before Tim Burton’s film adaptation, but after it, I would have been sure that it was nothing more than a mockbuster from Asylum Studios. But it turned out to be just a TV movie , released a year before the new hit on the beloved fairy tale. And not to say that it is completely garbage, but certainly not a great film, and at least not better than the 2010 version.
Perhaps the best adaptations of Alice in Wonderland were the 1951 Disney cartoon and the 1981 Soviet cartoon. But this is from the old versions, from the new ones, the best, indisputably, film by Tim Burton. One of the ancient adaptations, namely the picture of 1933 pleased only the first half of the film, from the middle began delirium, and in the television film 1999 of such delirium even more. The plot was so ridiculous that it was like someone’s strange dream, and although the plot of the adventure in Wonderland just dreamed Alice, the film should not be so ridiculous and absurd. The song about soup in general freaked out (after it, Valeria's song about tea began to seem much more intellectual). And who would have thought that this same director, 10 years later, would decide on another adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, only an alternative to the previous one! And again television production, which means cheap scenery and primitive script. I will not go into details about the distortion of the literary source, you can read about this in the only negative review of this creation, the person described everything in detail. I can only add that the film is shot in absolutely the same style as the previous film adaptation from the same director in 1999, it is just as ridiculous, just as cheaply shot (although, compared to the films of the studio “Asylum”, shooting to a level higher), and the production is not as poor as in “Nautilus – the Lord of the Ocean” (also the so-called “screen adaptation”, which transfers the action of the classics to the modern world), and the plot is not as crazy as in “Adventures of the Musketeers”, where the heroes of the novel used computers and flash cards. But I didn’t like the movie more than I liked it. I’ll probably like Lewis Carroll’s classic cartoons a lot more. The same film gives glamour and details of modernity, which does not benefit him, but gives him three-similarity .
6 out of 10
“If it were, it could be, and if it could be, it would be.”
“Alice in Wonderland” by Nick Ulling is not so much another recital of an old fairy tale or cyberpunk dystopia (although both, of course, too), as the love story of an adult Alice and the Hatter, told one hundred and fifty years after the events that occurred in the book of L. Carroll. The heroine of the picture is no longer a little girl looking at the world with her eyes wide open. Once in the distant past, her father left home to never return, and daughters abandoned by their fathers are a special kind of girls – their once broken hearts are safely hidden behind a strong armor of distrust, and only real heroes can melt this ice.
Who could have guessed that this hero would not be a handsome prince, almost from the first frames calling Alice to the crown, but a Hatter? Not crazy like Carroll, but insanely cute, with his cynical studying looks of a wet-dressed girl figure and life motto "Service for a favor, baby"? And who could guess that behind the coldness and prudence of Alice lies selflessness and the ability to go on the craziest adventure for the sake of loved ones, and the prudent crook Hatter with a lot of useful acquaintances will be the same knight, ready to sacrifice his life for the sake of a beautiful lady, while another, a real knight, runs in fear from the battlefield? The solution is simple: they were both not who they claimed to be, not who they thought they were before this meeting.
However, in Wonderland, the path to which lies through a magic mirror, everything is not what it seems at first glance. The beautiful prince can turn into a treacherous traitor at any moment, the cowardly White Knight - a brave warrior, the March Hare - a professional killer, and Garden Sonya - a resistance fighter with the dictatorial regime of another mad queen. After all, although in our world after the first visit of Alice passed a century and a half, there can be no peace and prosperity in Wonderland, because this time its inhabitants were attacked in the form of a lack of vivid emotions, for the supply of which the oppressive Red Queen adapted people kidnapped from our world and contemptuously called oysters. Stupefying the unfortunate with a sedative liquid, they are forced to play in the casino to exhaustion, and then throw it away like waste slag, drying it out. And, of course, the fate of the long-suffering magical country is again in the hands of “the very Alice of the legend”, who will not only save the world and understand her own feelings, but also not lose her head.
For director Nick Willing, “Alice” 2009 was the second adaptation of the story of L. Carroll. And if ten years before that the light saw a more less classical version of the chronicles of miraculous events, then in this picture from the first frames it becomes clear that the viewer is not waiting for a children's fairy tale. This is evidenced by the visual range of the film, surprisingly harmoniously combining urban and cyberpunk post-apocalyptic capital of Wonderland with schizophrenic diversity and surrealism of the style of the 60s, reigning in the interiors of the casino and the costumes of its inhabitants, and reflecting the madness that is happening within its walls.
At the same time, the storyline of the picture traces the strong influence of the fairy-tale series “The Tenth Kingdom”, the laurels of which, it seems, did not give rest to Willing. Therefore, it is difficult not to notice the parallels in the development of the romantic relationship of Alice and the Hatter with the history of Virginia and the Wolf, as well as the episode with the loss of one of the heroine’s parents in a parallel universe. The connection of these works can be traced even in blue clothes, which are preferred by Alice and Virginia.
However, do not think that we are just a pale copy of the famous series. “Alice” will always remain “Alice”, and the more the original plot of the work is changed, the more pleasure the search for allusions to the book will bring to fans of Lewis Carroll, who guess in the idea of oysters the story from the poem about the carpenter and walrus, in the Tea Shop – a house for crazy tea drinking, and in flying mechanical flamingos – unfortunate birds used for golf.
Carroll began filming at the dawn of cinema. One of the first staged films with special effects is Alice in Wonderland by Cecil Hepworth, filmed as early as 1903. And here we go. And still the novel, written in the century before last, remains a favorite material for many directors and screenwriters. Some film Alice even twice, such as the English storyteller Nick Willing.
When he shot Alice for the first time, in 1999, he managed to collect a rich bouquet of famous and excellent actors, created a good video sequence, but still critics and audiences were dissatisfied with the picture. I remember watching TV as a kid and I loved it.
But Willing does not stop and, ten years later, continues to film the immortal story. But now, instead of a children's fairy tale, on the output we have action with beloved heroes. "Action" word, of course, loud, but still dynamics in the new Alice enough. But all in order.
1. Plot . Alice grows up, again, accidentally, falls into a strange world and is in the center of events associated with the ring, with the help of which the movement from the real world to the fabulous one takes place. In general, the plot develops and develops during the film. There are a lot of elements, the puzzle is going into an interesting picture. But when viewing does not leave some sense of mediocrity, predictability. There are many unexpected turns, but they are all so expected. Sometimes sentimental, sometimes very dynamic film with chases, shooting, flying flamingos (not birds).
2. The movie universe. Wonderland has changed a lot since Alice’s first visit. No card locks, nice houses, crazy tea party. In his new creation, Willing tried to mix elements of urbanism, cyberpunk, steampunk. Everything would be fine, the idea is clear, but it could be better to draw all this - then and then in the picture slipped poor-quality video. At least the scene where the crazy twins torture Alice. This space for imagination is unlimited, literally. But in the end, we end up with effects reminiscent of the screensaver on Windows 98 (although I don’t remember if it even had screensavers). Even the first film adaptation of the director for that time showed a very good picture. Among the advantages: the casino is bright, colorful, stylish, and the forest is an ordinary green forest.
3. Characters. All the characters in the film are played by people. Except for the Cheshire cat, played by a cat, but the creators so minimized his appearance on the screen that there is nothing more to say. Interesting interpretations of the Queen, the Maps that are her servants, the Walrus and the Carpenter. The March Cyborg Hare is especially delighted.
Alice's not the one anymore. A little girl who once fell down a rabbit hole has grown up, so the authors of the film had to recreate the character, literally from scratch. Purposeful, courageous, strong-minded karate girl with a black belt - this is what the new Alice or Prostalisa, as the White Knight called her, appeared before the audience. The heroine does not cause any emotions: no sympathy, no irritation - nothing. Prostalys.
The Hatter's pretty face performed by Andrew Lee Potts. It seems like the main character, but there is nothing to say about him. Martin Short remembered more in the previous film. The hatter has to be crazy like Short, like Depp, and here he's just pretty and that's all.
The White Knight is a ray of light in this dark Wonderland. Great acting of the actor, a truly crazy character, which should be filled with a fairy tale. The knight is perhaps the most pleasant and memorable element in the film (along with the March Cyborg Hare).
4. English director Nick Willing, who loved the genre of fairy tales, shoots good, in principle, things for family viewing, for recreation. He made two Alices, but they were so different. In the second film adaptation, he transferred the characters to completely new scenery based on his own vision and fantasy. It's a pity that the execution has been punctuated. There are complaints, but should we focus on them? Carroll lovers must watch, lovers of fairy-tale television series too.
The style in which Nick Willing creates his fantasy mini-series, some call a real fantasy in contrast to fantasy thrillers and half-actions. Well, it's about such a narrative, protracted action where there's a lot of road, a lot of conversation between how something happens, and events develop gradually. This should bring the flow of time in fantasy space closer to the real one, and provide a more complete immersion, but it also requires more from the film crew, because it is one thing to impress and leave, and another to stomp through fairy-tale worlds in the image of 2 series in an hour and a half. In practice, it turns out to be controversial, and if you have a limited budget and good, but mostly not very experienced actors, what happens sometimes begins to resemble documentary filming. And the degree of interest of the viewer is very unstable, it seems that it would be better if you find a talented editor and remove empty minutes ... but, apparently, the principle.
So, then, Alice runs after the rabbit and Alice falls into the mirror, and this is a hint that the film is based on both books, and then begins a quite classic story in the story, decorated in the form of:
Walk, walk, walk, search the ring,
Walk, walk, walk, find the ring,
Walk, walk, walk, throw the ring.
At the mouth of Mount Doom.
Here and here they stole, searched, rescued, and the Queen even meowed a couple of times about my beauty, generally good. Of course, references to Carroll survived in the form of rare quotes, and not only verbal, but also small features in the images of the characters. But the most important point in his books, filmmakers invariably remake (except, perhaps, Schwankmeier), namely, he wrote about little girls. And his stories are stories of their fears, conflicts and difficulties. In the movies, they love the teenage period much more, and the girl Prostalisa runs in the mirror to save her beauty, whom she rejected 5 minutes ago, and now wants to understand why. There is a very scary and disgusting short film about the growing up of a girl Alice, where she is cruelly tortured by strange and ridiculous types in gas masks and skin under the supervision of a swollen fat, bloated and faceless queen, it feels like we are often offered the same thing in a diluted and embellished form.
Let's go back to the characters, because the most important thing I want to say here is that the movie is worth watching for two of them. The first is the White Knight of the Looking Glass, a wonderful character that I see for the first time fully bred in film adaptations. It is not quite bookish in spirit, but original, very powerful and very funny. He is an old man, but not out of date, a little crazy, touching and unsinkable, because he is one of the few here who really manages to live in a magical world - in his head.
And the second... a ghost, a fantasy, a hero, so clearly present in the stories about Alice that he is caught and embodied in the form of the White Rabbit, but more often, as here – the Hatter... my old love, the one who never gave to the seemingly brilliant Depp, but so seemingly embodied by a certain Andrew Lee Potts, his views, his gestures, his cunning, desperation, madness, the only one with which is never afraid, even if the fairy country turns out to be too similar to our world; when there is not enough special effects, this is especially obvious.
So here we go. This movie can give you a few minutes of admiring the city in the Middle Kingdom, muttering and songs of an old knight and the idea that some girls choose psychos rather than princes, even if they are not called Alice.
Thanks.
For some reason, new movies are passing me by. Alice in Wonderland came to me recently and accidentally. First of all, I thought it was the Tim Burton movie that everyone was praising. I love Alice Carroll very much. Looking glass, especially. Third, my stories are all. Especially for adults.
So I got Nick Willing's Alice. Until that moment, I was not familiar with the work of this director and, as it turned out, also the screenwriter. No regrets. I am very happy that this film came to me before the Berton version.
I liked everything. No exception. I rarely watch a movie without stopping. The problem with modern society is advertising every 15 minutes, as a result, a person cannot sit still, even if it is a video. There was no such problem with this film. Three hours like glued.
Now the actual specifics, and not just a pink syrup of emotions.
Actors. There are no stars of first magnitude. I understand the first magnitude is Hollywood primas. Question. Do you seriously think they would be appropriate in a British film? The problem with Hollywood is posterity. Sadly enough. The UK is not suffering from this either, and I hope in the future.
All actors have successfully performed their roles. All were natural, immediate and appropriate. Even the Duchess, though, seemed a bit cardboard. The blonde jack cut his eyes. Philip Winchester is destined to be brown, well, or red in extreme cases. White hair isn't his. Although, I think, the director of this unnaturalness and sought, who knows.
I’m not going to describe the work of every actor, I’ve been through it before. I agree with the previous comments about Andrew Lee Potts. He is really pulling the blanket over himself. :) )
Screenplay.Flawless. Everything is logical, there is no sagging, the plot develops consistently and naturally.
Nick Willing was scolded because he lied to the classics. Carroll didn’t write a children’s book, even for children. And, according to critics of walrus and carpenter images, Willing’s interpretation is the closest to Carroll’s. Both fought for oysters, and the walrus also liked to eat them. In my opinion, a very interesting find. Both lured oysters with sweet speeches, the casino analog - sweet promises of all sorts of pleasures.
In general, in the film, all the key book moments are very finely worked out.
Drink me a bottle. Why did book Alice drink the contents? Curiosity, Willing replies. And how does he answer!
Crazy tea in the book. The tea house in the movie. And what is happening there is not normal.
March hare. Total psycho.
Decoration.Conquered. Everything is so familiar and so fantastic. Nothing superfluous, nothing inappropriate. Everything is in its place. The Kingdom of the Knights is very beautiful and sadly shown.
Restrained minimalism. Attention to detail. It's expensive. There's a moment in the movie (two to be exact) when the characters fall into the water. The clothes are dry in the frame. Not like it usually is. Oh, fell, oh, already dry running. It's very rewarding.
Special effects. They don't really exist. That's what a good movie is. They'd ruin it. So the focus is on the actors and the plot, not on computer graphics. I don’t want to offend the fans of Berton’s Alice, but this is a beautiful bright empty space, in my humble opinion. The picture is amazing, the colors tear the brain. It is beautiful, challenging, exciting, but do not think.
There is emotional excitement of a different nature. Learning and understanding. Tea. Wow, you! It could have been that way! Caterpillar. Wow, you! Interesting twist.
The movie is a little naive. But it's a fairy tale. Classic magic. She has to be a little naive.
One more thing. The film is best viewed in the original voiceover. Nothing bad about the Russian road can not say, opposite the voice tried to pick up very well, but in the original sound of the picture more charm.
I guess we should make an assessment. It's simple.
With reference to Carroll, this isn’t Alice in Wonderland, but an insanely beautiful narrative about modern-day Alice! This fairy tale is very budgetary, so the main thing here is not the scale of the beautiful world of the magical country, but a wonderful performance of history. The details are changed as if the action really took place in the modern world, and the plot is more aimed at adult admirer Carroll Lewis.
The actors are very well selected. What is the only insanely impressive Hatter performed by Andrew Lee Potts? And the appearance and facial expressions he is very similar to Depp, but plays completely in his own way, so even the tongue will not turn to call him a parody of Johnny or even say that he plays poorly. He's a great Hatter.
Katerina Scorson is the second amazing acquisition of this film. Here, she's not playing Carollow's Alice at all, but she's the one that popped up in my head when I read the original. There are also many other charismatic and equally impressive characters in the film, all of them very mimic and excellent in their fairy-tale country.
In general, once again, in this Alice there are few special effects and the film is designed for ordinary TVs, but it is worth watching it for the sake of stunning acting, a charming fairy tale and the amazing Hatter.