| Alice | |
|---|---|
Alice's intertitle. |
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| Genre | Miniseries Science fiction Fantasy Romance |
| Creator | Nick Willing |
| Directed by | Nick Willing |
| Produced by | Michael O'Connor |
| Written by | Nick Willing |
| Starring | Caterina Scorsone Kathy Bates Andrew-Lee Potts Matt Frewer Harry Dean Stanton Colm Meaney Tim Curry Philip Winchester |
| Music by | Ben Mink |
| Editing by | Peter Forslund Allan Lee |
| Country | Canada United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Original channel | Showcase |
| Original run | December 6 – December 7, 2009 |
| Running time | 180 minutes |
| No. of episodes | 2 |
Alice is a 2009 television mini-series that was originally broadcast on Canadian cable television channel Showcase and an hour later on American cable television channel Syfy.[1][2] The miniseries is a reimagining of the classic Lewis Carroll stories Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, taking place about 150 years later with science fiction and additional fantasy elements added.[3][4] The miniseries was produced by RHI Entertainment, the company that produced Tin Man, the highly successful 2007 adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The series is three hours long, split into two parts, which premiered on Sunday, December 6, 2009 and Monday, December 7, 2009 respectively.[5] Writer and director Nick Willing previously directed a 1999 adaptation of the books which followed the story more closely; however, Alice is intended to be a modern interpretation, imagining how Wonderland might have evolved over the last 143 years.[6][7] The mini-series was partially shot in the Kamloops, B.C., Canada area.[8]
Contents |
The story takes place in Wonderland 150 years after the original "Alice's" visit, and Wonderland is an outlandish inter-dimensional city of twisted towers and casinos built out of playing cards, all under the rule of the Queen of Hearts (Kathy Bates). The White Rabbit is a secret organization, lead by a character who is also referred to as the White Rabbit that works for the Queen of Hearts and abducts people from the real world (referred to as "Oysters"), so they can gamble in the Queen's casino. Once people are kidnapped, they are sedated and forced to play in the casino so their positive emotions can be drained by the Queen. These drained emotions have a drug-like effect on the people of Wonderland. The Queen keeps people under control by sedating them with elixirs that provide an instant fix of emotions as a way to pacify them when they become too unruly.[7]
Alice Hamilton (Caterina Scorsone) is a judo sensei in her twenties who is searching for her father who disappeared when she was ten. She lives with her mother Carol (Teryl Rothery). Jack Chase, a man she has recently begun dating, comes over to her house to meet her mother. After eating, her mother leaves the two of them alone. As they are talking he gets a text on his phone saying, "RUN". He then gives Alice a ring that has been in his family for a long time. Feeling that it is too soon, she tells him that he needs to let her think and they will talk after a few days. He leaves and she starts talking to her mom about the experience. She then finds that Jack has slipped the ring into her pocket. She runs outside hoping to return it. She hears a yell and runs down an alley. She witnesses Jack being thrown into a van by some men. She chases one of them (The White Rabbit) and falls through a looking glass, finding herself in Wonderland.
Shortly after landing in Wonderland, Alice is trapped in a 'honeycomb box' that the White Rabbit had set for her, which is taken up to a White Rabbit ship that will take her to the casino to be sedated and used. Using a hairpin, she escapes the trap and meets an old man who takes her to the Hatter (Andrew-Lee Potts). Hatter takes her to the leaders of the Resistance, but they are forced to fight and flee after the leader, Dodo (Tim Curry), attempts to steal the ring by force. A ring that just happens to be the Stone of Wonderland, which the Queen of Hearts needs to re-open the Looking Glass, the gateway between the Oysters' world and Wonderland.
The Queen of Hearts sends out Mad March, an assassin that has found himself with the head of a huge rabbit, to find and capture Alice. He tracks her to Hatter's home. He sees them and they are forced to run. They take a boat across a lake to escape into a forested area, where after escaping a Jaberwock, they meet Charlie (Matt Frewer), the White Knight, who guides them into a secret area to rest. Hatter and Alice argue and he begs her to forget about Jack. Alice refuses and he mutters something about Jack being a lucky guy. Alice wakes up early the next day and allows herself to be captured by Mad March, hoping to negotiate to secure the release of her boyfriend Jack and passage for them both back home. However, she learns that Jack is the Queen of Hearts' son and that he is already engaged to Duchess. Jack passes her a watch and says, "He's here." He then leaves with Duchess.
The Queen of Hearts then enlists Doctors Dee and Dum to extract from her the whereabouts of the ring. They torture Alice with her memories of her father's disappearance and her fear of heights. Hatter and Charlie, who followed her and managed to get inside the casino, rescue her.
The Queen of Hearts also orders the Duchess to find out why Jack enlisted Alice to come to Wonderland. Jack feigns being poisoned, knocks out a guard, ties the Duchess up, and escapes the casino.
Hatter, Alice, and Charlie escape on 'flamingos' (airborne pink motorbikes), but are shot down by pursuing security guards, and wash up on shore. Hatter goes back to town to try to send a message to Caterpillar, the leader of the resistance. When Hatter returns Alice asks what will happen to her if she is stuck in wonderland. Hatter sweetly replies that he will make sure she is okay and the two nearly kiss but are interrupted by Jack. Jack, sent by the resistance, meets up with Alice and convinces her to come along with him to meet Caterpillar (Harry Dean Stanton). Jack insists that she come alone and leave Hatter behind. Hatter convinces Alice to go with Jack alone but he and Charlie follow her anyway.
Jack explains that they want to send all the Oysters back to the real world and that Alice's father is the key to breaking the spell the Queen put on them. However, when Alice meets her father, he does not recognize her, and Mad March soon captures both Jack and Alice. Hatter attempts to free her, but Charlie, who was supposed to rush in and rescue Alice, instead flees into the countryside, while the Hatter is captured.
The King of Hearts convinces the Queen of Hearts to not execute Alice; instead she is to be exiled through the looking glass back to the real world. Jack is sentenced to be held overnight in the Eye Room and executed in the morning. Upon seeing that the Queen's men are capturing young children as Oysters, Alice breaks free and subdues the guards. Hatter is tortured by Dee and Dum, but when Mad March tries to kill him, he beats him and escapes. Charlie comes back, setting up a fake army outside the casino, and the Queen sends all of her security guards to defeat the army. Meanwhile, Jack is locked up in the Eye Room when the Duchess comes and rescues him, telling him that she cared for him all along. Alice and Hatter run into each other and since Alice thought he was dead she jumps into his arms and he is clearly pleased. They lock the casino doors and implore the Oysters to wake up. As the Oysters awaken they start to feel negative emotions such as loss, panic, fear and anger. These negative emotions mix with the positive emotions being collected and start an explosive chain reaction. In the TV monitors, Alice's father also wakes up and goes out to meet Alice. He is stopped by Walrus at gun point. They struggle over the gun and it goes off, wounding Walrus. Security finally breaks through the casino doors along with her father. Alice starts crying after realizing that her father remembers her. They hug, but their happiness is short lived. Walrus, with a gun, shoots at Alice but her dad turns to take the shot and dies shortly afterwards. Walrus is then killed by the Hatter, who then has to pull the sobbing Alice away from her father and get her to safety.
The casino then becomes unstable and begins to crumble. Everybody flees, except the King of Hearts (Colm Meaney) who insists on remaining behind as the building collapses. Outside, the Queen of Hearts orders Alice captured but the "Oysters" defend Alice and she turns security guards against the Queen and the battle is over. The Queen surrenders the Stone of Wonderland to Alice.
As the Oysters line up to return home, Jack asks Alice to be his Queen, and she says no that she is not the same girl she was and she wants more. They say good-bye, and hug. He then invites Alice to put the Stone of Wonderland back into the looking glass to reconnect the worlds. Hatter, seeing Jack and Alice embrace, says goodbye flippantly, trying to hide his true emotion. Hatter lightly suggests he met up with Alice in her world for pizza and she replies with "or more." Alice is then taken and pushed through the looking glass. She comes round in a hospital, having apparently been found by a construction worker. When she gets home she starts to put away the things from her search for her father. Her mother then invites her to see the worker who found her named "David", who turned out to be the Hatter, who decided to follow her into her world and be with her. The two embrace and the mini-series concludes with their kiss.
The mini-series is set in the continuity of the books, and a large number of characters and features from the books are used. The characters appear as human with features resembling their usual forms. The original Alice is mentioned several times, and multiple characters mistake Alice Hamilton for the same character. The Hatter is presented as a suave character who owns a business that sells the human emotions like drugs, with the Dormouse in his services.He is not only depicted to be the same age as Alice but he falls in love with her. The Ratcatcher character appears to be based on the Mouse from the first book. The Dodo is head of the resistance against the Queen, and is flanked by the gun-wielding Duck and Eaglet (called Owl in the series). The Caterpillar is the leader of the resistance, and appears as an aging spectacled man. A fusion of the present-day Alice's pet cat Dinah, and the Cheshire Cat appears in a dream Alice has.
The Queen of Hearts appears to be a lot calmer and more calculating than the book's version, suggesting that her personality is based on the Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass. The White Rabbit is used as the name for the Queen's organization, but also the character himself appears as a white-haired man named "Agent White" portrayed by Alan Gray. The March Hare appears as an assassin called Mad March, who speaks with a pronounced Brooklyn accent and has a computerized rabbit cookie jar for a head. The Carpenter is a human in this adaptation, whilst he is a Wonderland resident in the books, alongside The Walrus who is also in a human version. Tweedledum and Tweedledee appear as disturbed psychiatrist-like doctors in the Queen's service. A computer-generated Jabberwock appears in one scene.
Alice was the most watched original mini-series on Syfy since Tin Man in 2007 (which rated the highest in their history). Part One jumped 143% in Adults 18-49, 91% among Adults 25-54 and 89% in total viewers versus the 2009 Sunday 9-11PM (ET/PT) time period average, propelling Syfy to #1 in prime among Men 18-49. Part Two rose +223% in Adults 18-49, +159% among Adults 25-54 and +176% in total viewers versus the 2009 Monday 9-11PM (ET/PT) time period average.
Overall, Alice delivered 1.3 million Adults 18-49, 1.2 million Adults 25-54 and 2.3 million total viewers along with a 1.7 HH rating. Alice boosted Syfy into the #3 cable entertainment network for both Adults18-49 and Adults 25-54 in its Sunday and Monday 9-11PM (ET/PT) time period.
Reviews of Alice varied greatly, with ratings averaging around a 54, or average, on Metacritic.[9] Paige Wiser of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the show three of five stars, saying that it was "charming, but not perfect."[10] Randee Dawn from The Hollywood Reporter also gave the program a mediocre review,[11] and Nancy deWolf Smith of The Wall Street Journal said that "despite...diversions and whiz-bang special effects, [Alice] drags at times."[12]
Mark A. Perigard of the Boston Herald called Alice "fresh and original," lauding the acting and story.[13] TV.com also praised the show, calling it "a champion of production that fuses modern invention and nostalgic resourcefulness",[14] and David Hinckley of New York Daily News called it "just plain wonderful," saying that it was "a vehicle to engage the imagination while it amuses and entertains."[15]
Steven James Snyder of Techland.com said: "There's no denying that Alice has put it all on the line. And even when it comes to those who may not think that the whole thing gels perfectly, Alice's unhinged creativity is bound to at least earn their respect."[16] Rick Bentley at The Fresno Bee said: "The result will have you smiling like a Cheshire Cat. Willing creates a world that's Minority Report meets Austin Powers. The real fun is seeing how cleverly Willing has updated the familiar story to make it different from past TV and film versions."[17]
However, Tom Shales from the Washington Post gave the program a very negative review, saying that Tin Man was far superior,[18] while IGN said that Alice was "long-winded, uninspiring, and...hardly [did] the original material justice."[19] Robert Bianco from USA Today gave the show an indifferent review, calling it superior to Tin Man but saying the plot was "superimposed...with its shifting motives and dreary lectures," ultimately giving it two and a half stars out of four.[20]
Alice was released on DVD and Blu-ray on March 2, 2010.[21] On some region's DVD releases, the miniseries is presented as a continuous film, instead of correctly in two parts.