The story will be familiar to most. Dreading a singing recital at her parents' lavish home, Alice falls into a strange world in pursuit of a large White Rabbit. The talented child actor Tina Majorino (Corrina, Corrina, Napolian Dynamite) plays Alice with all the good graces but mostly wanders through strange, hallucinogenic journeys that take her to strange places, has her shrink and then grow very large, and leads her to meet all sorts of surreal characters...
Carroll's tale of whimsical, illogical adventures is a field day for designers, the costumes and makeup are extremely well done, and the special effects are of the usual high standard you would expect from Jim Henson's Creature Shop. But this production is all dressed up without anywhere worthwhile to go. Influenced by Time Bandits and Labyrinth, the film has a splendid array of effects, many dealing with multiple perspectives...
The highlights are Whoopi Goldberg as the Cheshire Cat, a seamless mix of cat and comic. Martin Short as the Mad Hatter. And Mirandra Richardson as the Queen of Hearts, who has put a memorable, if not piercing, personal stamp on the line, "Off with his head". She must say it sixty times during the movie...
The show is not for all tastes, particularly if your idea of Alice in Wonderland is solidly fixed upon Disney's very different if unjustly maligned 1951 animated feature. If you're in the right frame of mind, however, Miller's Alice works wonderfully well .
Carroll's tale of whimsical, illogical adventures is a field day for designers, the costumes and makeup are extremely well done, and the special effects are of the usual high standard you would expect from Jim Henson's Creature Shop. But this production is all dressed up without anywhere worthwhile to go. Influenced by Time Bandits and Labyrinth, the film has a splendid array of effects, many dealing with multiple perspectives...
The highlights are Whoopi Goldberg as the Cheshire Cat, a seamless mix of cat and comic. Martin Short as the Mad Hatter. And Mirandra Richardson as the Queen of Hearts, who has put a memorable, if not piercing, personal stamp on the line, "Off with his head". She must say it sixty times during the movie...
The show is not for all tastes, particularly if your idea of Alice in Wonderland is solidly fixed upon Disney's very different if unjustly maligned 1951 animated feature. If you're in the right frame of mind, however, Miller's Alice works wonderfully well .