Sherrill777
The Bad:There's very little in terms of cohesive story in this movie. The "plot" seems to simply be a series of strange short stories loosely connected. And the stories themselves are random bits of confusing nonsense. For people who enjoy abstract art, this may be enjoyable, but I don't particularly care for it. It also doesn't exactly stick close to the original book. Finally, I'd say the songs are mostly (with a few exceptions) forgettable.The Good: This is definitely a creative work. Probably as close to a dream-made-cartoon as you can get. The film is crammed full of memorable characters – from the Cheshire Cat, to the Queen of Hearts, to the White Rabbit. This movie also has the potential to invoke a lot of different emotions – sadness at the fate of the oysters; admiration and disgust at the flowers; frustration with the various direction-givers... The Mom view:This isn't a "feel good" movie. It's not a sad movie, but you don't come away feeling like anyone learned anything, that anything was resolved, or that any new relationships formed. It was more like a bunch of animated shorts strung together with a repeating protagonist. I appreciate it as being original and very unique, and one that might find favor with kids who have a huge imagination. But it is kind of intense at times and definitely not for kids who need a concrete story-line. So I wouldn't go out of my way to have my kids see this while they are very young, but rather wait until perhaps later elementary level and view it as more a piece of art than a fun adventure. Not my favorite Disney animated movie, but not horrible either.
williamarthurwatson
Alice in Wonderland is a film that looks very good. Anyone who watches a single scene from this movie on its own can't help but be impressed. But watching it from beginning to end is another matter. Alice is likable enough as she longs to find a world of her own but as soon as she goes down the rabbit hole things go wrong for the viewer as well as Alice. I think the problem is this: The movie presents a parade of characters using wordplay and songs meant to show how clever it is to twist logic into (sort of) funny verses. As soon as Alice leaves one lunatic she immediately encounters another. The Mad Hatter, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb, The Dodoo, and the Cheshire Cat are all just variations on the weird stranger that one shouldn't trust. To be fair I think something always gets lost in every film adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. Most of us don't watch movies the way that we read books and this book in particular seems incapable of being translated to film. Consider that Frank L Baum's similar story, The Wizard of Oz, worked a lot better in 1939 because Dorothy had the advantage of meeting a few nice (if strange) characters that stuck up for her. There is a bitter truth about Alice in Wonderland. The notion that the world is full of crazy adults who aren't very helpful in a crisis (and one or two may even want to cut off your head) sadly rings true of our human condition. But watching a little girl learn that lesson for an hour and fifteen minutes is just not very pleasant, even if there are one or two catchy songs along the way.
SlyGuy21
The movie might not have much of a conflict, or story, but it still manages to have a lot of energy to it. You could sort of say that this movie is a bunch of little shorts, and Alice just moves from one to the next. Sure the movie might be a dream, but it at least makes sense given how crazy everything is. Never having read the books it's based off of, I always considered the story to be about someone going slowly insane. Desperate to escape her mundane life, Alice creates a world where nothing makes sense, and gets lost in her own creation. I know the theory I have has been explored before by numerous click-bait articles titled "Top 69 Dark Disney Theories That Will Destroy Your Existence (#35 Will Make You Divorce Your Wife)" or something like that, but I think it's a neat theory. The movie's surreal, but it still manages to hold your attention and makes you want to see what happens next. I don't like it as much compared to other Disney movies, but I still liked it and I suggest giving it a shot.
creamfilling16
***SPOILERS***I've never written a review for a movie before on this site, but I felt I should for this one.I'll admit, I used to like this movie when I was a kid, but when I grew older, I realized I was liking it less, and now I can say that I don't like this movie, and don't understand why so many people love it.Why don't I like it? Well, because it's just so mean-spirited in tone and spends pretty much its entire run time treating Alice like garbage for no reason, over and over again, in an attempt to teach that you should be careful what you wish for. Now, teaching that I don't have a problem with. It's just that there have been countless other projects (films or shows) that teach that same moral, and they were not nearly as cruel as this movie was.The thing is, pretty much everything in this movie seems to conspire to torture Alice, either physically or emotionally, or both. Pretty much every character is a total jerk, to Alice and to each other: the Mad Hatter and March Hare play around pretty cruelly with her, the flowers kick her out of their garden, rather meanly, when they think she's a weed (even though they have a dandelion, which IS a weed, in their garden, those hypocrites), the Caterpillar is also rather unpleasant, having a temper that makes his scenes painful to watch (am I supposed to be laughing at Alice choking on smoke? Well, I'm not!), and the Queen of Hearts has the worst temper of the whole film, and even wants Alice dead, for no real reason.But then there's the Cheshire Cat, who seemed to go out of his way to make things worse for Alice, as it's his fault she ends up on trial, and it's also his fault that everyone in Wonderland tries to kill her! I'm not exaggerating when I say that this is the Cheshire Cat at his worst!But one of the biggest issues I have with this is that I feel like the movie is putting the Wonderlanders in the right for how they behaved. At the very least, it didn't put them in the wrong, which was a big mistake on the part of Disney. Worse, when Alice tells the Queen off for her behavior near the end, you find it justified, considering how she was treated by everybody. But even Disney had to mess that up by having her shrink again, which lands her in trouble because she was standing up for what was right.What makes all this worse is that Alice did absolutely nothing to deserve the torment given to her throughout her journey. All she wanted was to do something more interesting than listen to boring history lessons. And for this she gets punished, because wanting to do something more interesting than listen to lessons automatically makes you bad, apparently. It also seems to be teaching some morals children shouldn't learn, like, as someone else pointed out, dream worlds aren't happy and fantastical , but rather cruel and mean- spirited. (I know most of the film was a dream, but that kind of made it worse because that seems to teach that dream worlds are mad.) Also that it's OK to treat others badly if they're different from you or if you find it fun, and that you will only regret it if you stand up for what's right.I will admit, I do like some things about this film, like the animation is great as always (this is Disney, so what can I say?), I like almost all the songs in the film, as they're fun to listen to and well-written, and the beginning and very ending are pretty nice. I also did like a few characters, like of course Alice, but I also like the White Rabbit, the Dodo, the Dormouse, and the Doorknob, and I also find Tweedledee and Tweedledum kind of funny. These are my reasons for not giving the film only one star. If it wasn't for these elements, I probably would have given this film a 1. So yeah, I gave this three stars because there are some good things in it, but to me, the bad things far outweigh those.So bottom line, I don't like this film. I actually find it one of the worst Disney films of all time, and probably THE worst Disney film made while Walt Disney was still alive. I just don't get why it's so loved, especially since there are other projects out there that too are mean-spirited, but not nearly as much as this one is, and yet those get attacked while this gets a free pass. In fact, I don't think I ever will understand it. I just know that this is definitely not something I'd ever watch again if I was offered things I like. I guess I'll have to wait to see a truly great animated adaptation of the great book "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (yes, I like the book; at least it's not as cruel as this movie), because, to me, this one was just bad.
