I am not entirely sure whether this version is the best version of the book, as I grew up on the Disney film. The book is a real delight, it is admittedly oddball, but it is charming and visionary with memorable colourful characters. That is the same for Through the Looking Glass, I do prefer Alice in Wonderland as a book, but Through the Looking Glass does have a nice narrative and the characters still have their appeal.Back on target, this TV version is not bad at all. Actually it is decent. The length is rather excessive though making some scenes drag on a bit, and as sweet as it was the subplot about Alice being asked to sing at a party I had mixed feelings about. While it meant that Alice goes on a sort of journey in the film character-wise, it felt somewhat unnecessary. Plus in terms of performances, while I enjoyed the acting on the whole, Whoopi Goldberg as the Cheshire Cat disappointed me. She has the grin and her costume was wonderful, but she should have had more screen time.However, there is lots to enjoy here. For a TV movie, the visuals are pretty amazing. The sets are really colourful, the landscapes are vivid, the special effects are fairly impressive and the costumes are visionary. And I found the music surprisingly memorable, quite sweet really. I know people have complained of the screenplay being poor, personally I didn't find that. I enjoyed spotting the quotes lifted from the books and the actors seemed to having fun with it. Some of the added lines didn't quite work as well, but they were entertaining. Likewise with the merging of the two books, I for one didn't find that a problem. The director also does a good job making Wonderland as magical, as odd and as dreamlike as it should be, and some scenes were very well directed, especially the Mock Turtle sequence, the Caccus race, the Hatter's tea party, the Walrus and the Carpenter and of course the courtroom scene.The acting is also very enjoyable. Like Goldberg, Christopher Lloyd as the White Knight could've done with more screen time, but he does a very good job with what he has. Ben Kingsley is entertaining as Major Caterpillar, even if he did have some of the film's weakest dialogue, he delivers very well. Shiela Hancock, while she has been better, was fun as the Cook, a lot of shouting but hey she was fun. Tina Majorino I had no problem with as Alice, I sometimes find Alice in film adaptations bland but Majorino isn't bland, she is appealing and likable. Peter Ustinov is a perfect Walrus, likewise with Pete Postlethwaite as the Carpenter. Gene Wilder does fine also as the melancholy mock turtle, he started off a tad uncomfortable, no wonder with his costume as they are horrible to wear, but once he gets into the role he starts enjoying himself more. My favourite performances though were Miranda Richardson as a suitably shrill Queen of Hearts, Simon Russell Beale in a amusing turn as the King of Hearts and Martin Short as the somewhat eccentric Mad Hatter. Jason Flemying was also a riot as the Knave of Hearts as were Robbie Coltrane and George Wendt as Tweedledee and Tweedledum.Overall, flawed but perfectly decent made for TV adaptation. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Tideland (2005) looks to Alice with respect so it seemed worth looking and it was not so long before I found a copy of Wonderland, just I am way past the point were I could find this easy to read. Novels of 1860ish were often read little bits at a time, as with bedtime stories for the rather little? Tina Majorino. Corrina and Santa Fe. These are not stories for kids, as I had hoped. Find the Majorino version of Wonderland I should not expect it to be a story for kids but I should expect it to be a story that tries to have something worthwhile to say. Wonderland is widely quoted in features. The hypermarket copy of Alice, nicely low cost, the Majorino version too. Tideland had told me that it was worth trying to get to know this story and this DVD was the key I needed for approaching the novel. Add that this feature is Babelsberg, their Back To The Secret garden is one that I return to more than most features despite the deliberate flaws in the dining room scenes. Could be that they tried to specialise in here and now sort of stuff. * The feature starts off in a way that shows promise to me. Agony too, what early teens with a sense of dignity would not prefer to run rather than go through with singing such a song? Cherry Ripe. The feel of the start reminds me of Pit and the Pendulum applied to Bar Mitzvah, a useful allusion in helping me to start appreciating Alice. Lots of detail in the opening pointed to detail in the story to come, this Alice as a reflection of the real world as shown at the start and the end. Except that it is a reflection. Wonderland is reached by the Rabbit hole to give a world that is up side down. Looking Glass gives a back to front view. If this story does give survival hints then they will likely be convoluted? Down side. Not long into the story I was needing to concentrate more, as if this is also not so easy to read. Chunks do not have the immediacy that the best stories have made one expect, though bits with immediacy do keep on cropping up so it is a case of knowing that they are there and being prepared to try to not drift off beforehand. My own guess is that this might relate to this adaptation keeping to the novel too closely, in parts. Just a guess. A bigger reason is that in these up side down worlds one can get one's concentration messed up, real bad. A complication. I watch this in order to try to get to appreciate the novel and a key way I did that here, after seeing it all the once, was going through this slowly to try to write my own set of chapters. I got the impression that the DVD chapters did loosely follow the book chapters, my DVD version's chapter 8 matching chapter 8 of the novel. Just at chapter 10 the feature changes track and covers three chapters of Looking Glass before returning to Wonderland. Could be that those three give useful supplementary detail, just I find this story to take work from me, I would actually have preferred it to keep to normal feature length and just the Wonderland novel. Except that this meant that I have now skimmed a freeware e form of Looking Glass so I know that it includes stuff that I have never read or seen. I am getting the impression that Carroll has a lot of experience of the up side down worlds. He also has fluency for writing a range of fictional scenarios. But does he believe that there is an escape route or has he not found one at this stage, that is the main detail that I looked for in this story. I assume no, but that he has been able to adapt well.

What could have been a magic Alice using the formula of top Stars in the cameo roles as in the 1933 version, is dulled by excessive length and an unnecessary sub plot, concerning Alice's shyness in performing a song for a family gathering.Also combining scenes from Through the Looking Glass while pleasant in themselves, extends the running time, and the pedestrian pace of the film. Sure there are some magic moments, and fortunately the designers have called upon Sir John Tenniel's illustrations for their characters, and the dialog when it is from Lewis Carroll's text is happily nonsense. It is bits that are not by Carroll that detract sadly.It could have been much better, and even Tina Majorino doesn't make an especially attractive Alice. Perhaps re-editing it down to about 90 minutes would make it a winner, but we'll never know. A pity because some of the segments are very good indeed, with guests like Whoopy Goldberg, Martin Short, Ben Kingsley, Miranda Richardson, Peter Ustinov, and Pete Postlethwaite enjoying themselves immensely

To the person who compared this production to the Disney animation and was disappointed: you only have yourself to blame. I imagine that you took great joy waiting in endless lines for the spinning tea cup and "Small World" rides at Disneyworldland.This was an amazing film with an amazing cast that didn't cater to John or Jane Popcorn and their 2.5 children.If you have the attention span of a gnat you'll hate this movie. If you think that Lewis Carroll is the guy in accounting, you'll hate this movie.If, on the other hand, you enjoy cinema and want to give your kids a respite from saccharine shows, you'll enjoy this treat.