Walt Disney's Alice in Wonderland Review

After watching Walt Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, I thought I should take my inspiration and channel it into this review. While oriented more towards a depiction of the events within Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland with only a spattering of connections to Through the Looking Glass and the poem “Jabberwocky”, it still has a great deal to offer for both children and adults. As a child, it brings amusement at the songs interspersed and the colorful and bizarre characters, especially the Cheshire Cat and the Mad Tea Party participants. But as an adult who may either have never heard of Lewis Carroll or has read him in depth, there is much literary appreciation in the references to Carroll’s lyrics, prose and general nonsensical logic and sayings. For a film that has long since crossed the threshold into antiquity, it still holds value for comparison to the 2010 reimagining of the Carroll canon into the cinema, though for the purposes of time and expression, I will keep this concise and pointedly in the direction of the creation of Walt Disney himself.

The plot, as already mentioned, follows very closely to the events in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The involvement of Alice’s sister seems absent, though the woman teaching her history may be a much older sister. And Dinah the cat is present, though her involvement, much like in the text, is short and almost unimportant. She does have the amusing qualities of animals in Disney that have not yet stepped into anthropomorphism and yet manifest reactions that suggest they understand us nonetheless. After one of many songs, a theme present in many Disney films even today, Alice sees the eponymous White Rabbit, following him into a hole. She then discovers the bottle saying “Drink Me”, shrinking to 3 inches tall, being directed by the talking doorknob that showed her said bottle to find the key. Unable to reach it, she eats a small cookie with “Eat Me” written on it from a box magically appearing like the key before. She then grows to 20 feet tall and after crying a flood of tears, she drinks from the bottle again, being washed away in the tides through the doorknob’s mouth. Absent from the series of events in the book is the conversation with a mouse about her cat, which predictably upsets the rodent. But continuing on, Alice sees other animals (mostly birds) swimming or boating their way through the sea of tears and eventually attempting to dry themselves off in an endless race in a circle, the Caucus Race from the novel. She then chases after the Rabbit again and runs into Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, from Through the Looking Glass, who, along with teaching her logic and manners, tell her the story of the Walrus and the Carpenter, animated accordingly with a variety of additions and changes to the poem. She manages to sneak away as they recite “Old Father William” and stumbles into the White Rabbit again, who instructs her to get his gloves, a reference to a similar account in the novel where Alice is instructed to get the Duchess’s gloves, a character wholly absent from the film. Alice then eats another cookie with “Eat Me” written on it, growing to 20 feet again inside the house. The Rabbit enlists the help of the Dodo seen guiding the Caucus Race from before and he suggests to burn the house down after failing to smoke Alice out with the help of Bill the Lizard. Eventually, Alice snatches a carrot from the Rabbit’s garden which, after being consumed, shrinks her back to 3 inches tall. She then tries to find the rabbit, running into talking flowers singing songs, another reference to Through the Looking Glass. After the song, they realize she is a “common weed” and shoo her away, contrary to what the rose, the only nice flower in the bunch, would have wanted. Eventually she meets the blue caterpillar, with his smoking habits, who eventually helps her after much sputtering about with his hookah and Alice’s attempt to question him. He covers himself in smoke and flies away as a butterfly, giving her advice to eat the mushroom on one side or another to change her size. She grows to 20 feet again and scares a panicking bird who thinks she is a serpent and eventually returns to 3 inches with the other side. After licking the growing mushroom she is returned to normal size. After meeting the Cheshire Cat, voiced by, to my memory, the same actor as Kaa from The Jungle Book, she is guided to the Mad Tea Party, having many inane conversations with the Mad Hatter, March Hare and the sleepy Dormouse (conforming to the original text now, it seems). She leaves after the White Rabbit is thrown out after an incident with his watch and becomes quite lost and frustrated with all the nonsensical creatures in the forest. She then becomes sad and weepy at the thought of never getting home as the creatures all disappear. The Cheshire Cat then directs her through a tree to the Queen of Hearts. She meets a trio of card soldiers painting the roses red for the Queen who hates white roses for some reason. After the Queen’s entrance, she has the cards in question executed off screen and Alice befriends her, the Queen inviting her to play croquet. The Cheshire Cat eventually plays a prank on the Queen and Alice is put on trial before the presumed execution that is waiting for her. The trial progresses as the farce that it is and Alice eats the remnants of the mushrooms, finally having her say about what she really thinks of the Queen before returning to normal size. She then flees from all the manner of characters giving chase as the setting continues to change before her eyes. After the chase concludes in an odd flash of colors, she awakens to find she was dreaming almost the entirety of the story. And her sister, or teacher or whatnot, excuses her laziness and directs her for teatime as the film ends.

Alice is probably the only important character to consider, but there are a few others that bear reflection on. Alice’s initial mannerisms are reflective of the rest of the film’s complete irrationality. As she stipulates about her imaginary world she’s creating, “Whatever something is, it isn’t and contrariwise whatever it isn’t, it is,” no doubt around the point where she starts falling asleep. Her cat, Dinah, is almost too cute with a little ribbon around its neck and its interactions with Alice making it almost human in its level of understanding. And its behavior with flowers would probably make any person, regardless of feelings towards real cats, smile slightly at its antics. Alice’s change as she enters Wonderland is not surprising since it’s a reversal of her external behavior, considering logic and reasoning out things as she communicates with the many bizarre denizens of her mental creation. And she becomes quite morose at realizing she misses home after many misadventures in searching for the White Rabbit. And in the end, the whole internal psychological dynamics are forgotten since we know that she is going to be fine, since she still lets her imagination take over and maintain the childishness that got her into the situation to begin with. The White Rabbit is a decidedly minor character, though he is similar to Alice in her dreams, being quite reasoned and rational about things, only panicking when the obvious shock appears in front of him like a 20 foot tall girl or when someone like the Dodo suggests they burn the house down to get rid of it. But his role is decidedly minor throughout, overshadowed by the Queen of Hearts who serves as the main antagonist. She is temperamental and otherwise a despotic tyrant who changes her whim and feelings at the drop of a hat and generally towers over her husband, literally and figuratively, in ruling whatever kingdom they possess. She isn’t a direct parallel to Alice’s instructor/sister, since their temperaments are decidedly opposite, but Alice could be making a caricature of the authority her sister has over her for the sake of the dream’s absurdity. The Cheshire Cat’s involvement is probably short in terms of screen time, maybe 15-20 minutes at the most, but he does serve as a twisted projection of her memories and experience with Dinah the cat. He guides her through Wonderland the best a cat can and even aids in confronting the Queen of Hearts, which Dinah does in the real world with the flower crown made by Alice.

There are hardly any themes to speak of except the general absurdities associated with Lewis Carroll’s works, twists of logic, aesthetic expectations and the general idea that the entire thing is a psychotropic drug or head trauma induced hallucination. It’s Disney, so you can’t expect bad animation quality in the slightest, so no doubt you’ll enjoy that as well. The Cheshire Cat, always my favorite Carroll character, is presented in a surreal and mindbending fashion that makes any adaptation of Carroll’s works worth watching at any age. Similarly with other violations of general norms of the real world, the animation portrays it in a lighthearted and yet abrupt fashion that gives you the Wonderland experience all over again in action.

All in all, this is more a reflection than a review, since you can’t help but recommend for aspiring cinematographers, animators and the like to watch Disney’s classics, ranging from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and Cinderella to Bambi and Lady and the Tramp; all made within the 30s-50s period. But even if you have kids in the 2020s, I would highly encourage you to introduce your children to this piece of adaptation that has only been matched by the company’s recent collaboration with Tim Burton. It’s a tad heavy on songs, but they’re probably the best method to introduce young minds to poetry without putting them to sleeps, so it’s tolerable. A solid 5 and another solid 100% (seems like most of my film reviews now are 100%, but I’m reviewing select films to begin with, aren’t I?). Until next time, Namaste and aloha.