Alice in Wonderland

Voices of: Kathryn Beaumont, Ed Wynn, Richard Haydn, Sterling Holloway, Jerry Colonna, Verna Felton
Directed by: Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson
Rating: G
Genre: Adventure, Fantasy
1951

Times Seen:
Tim: 2

Summary: Alice travels down a rabbit hole to Wonderland, where she finds many strange creatures in a world ruled by nonsense. At first, she loves the wonderous world. However, she soon misses home and starts a journey to make it back.

Review:

Tim: It doesn't really surprise me that Alice in Wonderland a box office failure when first released. While today, the film is certainly an animation classic, it's one of the least accessible Disney movies. This is partially because of the heady, intellectual aspect of the story, filled with analogies and social commentary. It is also partially because Alice in Wonderland is simply not one of Disney's best movies. The film is good, but it takes too much effort to get into it. This film is good, but it's definitely flawed.

Part of the issue comes with the very nature of Wonderland- it is a world filled with nonsense. While the nonsense starts out funny and new, it quickly grows tiresome. In this fashion, we really are with Alice as she makes the same realization about the world she's in. However, the movie keeps going and it just gets more and more annoying. The story feels a bit jumbled, as if it combined elements from two different stories (which it did). The story also feels like it occasionally meanders off in pointless directions. For example, there's a long sequence about the Walrus and Carpenter. The story here is cute, I suppose, and it would make a very entertaining short film. However, it comes early on in Wonderland, and it just feels like it detracts from the main story. Rather than seeing Alice move forward in her quest to find the White Rabbit, we stop for quite a while to hear a story that is only loosely connected to the rest of the story. I felt like this was a disruption more than anything.

I didn't especially care for the music in the film. There are certainly a few classic songs- "I'm Late" is memorable and "The Un-Birthday song" is probably the best in the film. However, as a whole, I felt like the songs weren't terrific. It is a little surprising the film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Music (it's only nomination), but not surprising that it did not win. It doesn't help that Kathryn Beaumont, who voices Alice, was not a great singer at all.

Now, I admit that I'm being a bit harsh with the film, but those flaws were fairly apparent to me. On the positive side, Disney does create this crazy, beautiful, sometimes nightmarish world of Wonderland. There are some truly memorable, classic moments in the film- the first meeting with the Cheshire Cat, the whole "Off with her head!" scenes with the Queen of Hearts, Alice growing huge, then small, then huge again, and many others. While this isn't the best Disney movie, audiences certainly embraced it more and more over the years. This is a good movie, I want to be clear about that. However, when you compare Alice in Wonderland to the other Disney classics over the years, I feel like this movie exists on a bit of a lower plane. It is good, but it is far from great.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 7



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Charlie Alice in Wonderland (2010), Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty