Alice in Dreamland

As a big fan of the original Alice in Wonderland book, I'm often attracted to its multiple adaptations. The vast majority is not all that impressive, to be honest. I expected this one to not be so good as well, especially considering the low score and the negative reviews here in MAL. Boy, was I wrong.

I'm not one to say stupid things like "if you disliked (thing), it's because you didn't understand it," regarding any kind of media, but I really can't avoid thinking that the reason why so many peope disliked Alice in Dreamland was simply because it was very different from what they ... expected. It is a weird-looking movie, definitely something very different from 99% of anime. It can hardly be called an anime.

But enough introduction, let's go to the review.

• Story - 6/10

The story is about Alice, a girl who loves reading. She is suddenly called back to the Wonderland she had already visited before. However, Wonderland has changed, it was invaded by an entity called Darkness, and the White Rabbit called Alice back so she can become the Queen, defeat Darkness and save Wonderland. It's a very simple plot, but it's enough.

• Art/Animation - 9/10

Here's where this movie shines the brighter. The animation looks weird because while it's said to be stop-motion, the movements were clearly made digitally instead of being actual stop-motion, so it looks kind of off-putting at first. But the art itself is fantastic. The dolls made by Mari Shimizu are simultaneously very beautiful and very creepy. The backgrounds add to the dark atmosphere. Overall, the art is unsettling, and that's what makes it so good.

• Sound/OST - 10/10

The sound is actually my favorite part. The OST made for this movie is very unique, the few songs that have lyrics, that are all connected to the story, fit the scenatio perfectly. The background music also adds to the dark atmosphere, while still being songs that are pleasant to listen. The background sounds and voice acting were also on point. The voice acting gave me the impression of watching a stage play instead of a dubbed movie, and I thought it was fitting since instead of moving drawings we had dolls "acting".

• Characters - 9/10

If you're familiar with Alice in Wonderland (and I assume you are) then you know the characters. Tthey are all here: White Rabbit, Mad Hatter, Cheshire Cat, Humpty-Dumpty, March Hare, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, etc. There's also the new villain, called simply Darkness, and among Alice's "friends" there is a lion that I assume that was borrowed from The Wizard of Oz, and an unicorn that I have no clue where came from. The characters don't really have any development, but considering you're supposed to already know them well, I don't think that was a problem.

• Enjoyment - 9/10

I thoroughly enjoyed this. Out of many Alice in Wonderland adaptations and reinventions, Alice in Dreamland was easily one of the most interesting ones. I think that if you are looking for something unconventional, strange and dark to watch, this movie is a good choice.

Alice in Dreamland is an independent anime film from 2015. Of course, it's based on the classic novel, Gulliver's Travels. You can just tell from the name. Let's dive in and see how it goes. 

Story:

Alice is a young girl who loves reading. One day, she's approached by the White Rabbit, who she recognises from stories. He needs her to come with him because Wonderland is being consumed by the darkness and if she doesn't come help them, Tim Burton will make it grim, gritty and irredeemably stupid forever. Thus begins the quest to save the beloved classic from Tim Burton. And you might say "Ktulu, they're ... saving it from the Darkness, not Tim Burton." But if you think about it, the Darkness wants to twist the story into a grim, gritty version. Which sounds like Tim Burton to me. 

The biggest issue with the film's story arc is that it's full of turns that aren't well developed but are kind of obvious. Alice going from saying that she can't do a lot to fully embracing her role as the saviour of Wonderland. The whole thing with the Knight. It's all stuff you can easily see coming but the development surrounding it is pretty weak. 

On the positive side, I do kind of like the idea of the Wonderland characters rising up to save their world from the dark, grittiness brought on by Tim Burton so that they can make it bright, colourful and fun again. And we do have to consider that its target audience is children. So, we can't be too harsh on it for having simplistic writing. 

Characters:

The cast is very simple. The film kind of relies on you being familiar with Alice in Wonderland and doesn't really bother doing much with most of the characters. And Tim Burton is just a typical kid's film villain. He wants to engulf Wonderland in darkness and make everything grim to compensate for his insignificant genitalia. What, you thought the people writing dark and edgy versions of light-hearted media were just stupid? No, they're all compensating.

I will say, even for a piece of children's media, the characters are overly simplistic. There's no real difference between The Hatter, the Dormouse, The March Hare, The Lion, The Unicorn or the Tweedles. At least in terms of personality. 

Art:

One one hand, I give the art style credit for being unique. On the other hand, it's pretty off-putting. The characters are dolls and the backgrounds, while weird, look like paper backdrops. It's not really an attractive style and it's not one that you can really express emotions with since the characters always have the same expressions. 

Sound:

The acting is a bit exaggerated but works well enough. It's not so overdone that it makes it difficult to listen to. The theme tunes are a little annoying. They're that variety of anime tune that involves a lot of high notes and random English phrases. 

Ho-yay:

There's no romance whatsoever. Ho-yay or otherwise. 

Areas of Improvement:

1. This would honestly work better if Alice spent less time trying to reject the call to action and there was more time spent on those turns instead. They could be much better fleshed out that way. 

2. Differentiate your characters. A couple minutes spent giving each of the Wonderland denizens more personality would really help the world seem more vibrant and raise the stakes of Alice's battle against Tim Burton. 

3. Better theme tunes. Like I said, the ones they have are pretty annoying. It might be kind of interesting to start with something slower and a bit dark and end with a song that's much lighter and more vibrant just to make the tunes match the state of Wonderland. 

Final Thoughts:

Honestly, I've seen much worse takes on Alice in Wonderland. The Burton films being the obvious examples. There was also that anime one with a bunch of consent-challenged lesbians I reviewed. If you can get past the doll art and you can appreciate the concept of saving Wonderland from the grim and gritty, you may well enjoy this one. For me, I really don't like the art style. I don't think it's unique in a positive way. I kind of like the concept, but I thought the execution fell short. So, I'm giving it a 4/10. I wouldn't go so far as to call it bad, but it's a bit weak. 

Alice in Dreamland is one of the latest attempts at retelling the Lewis Caroll classic story, infamous for their rather senseless attempt to make sense of the nonsense that is the mad, wonderful world and story of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. To set itself apart from its predecessors, Alice in Dreamland upped up the ante in the madness scale. And by jove, they did it. What could be madder than dolls with mouths that never move, prancing about in the most cost-saving way possible, in various admittedly surreal, bizarre, and horrifically beautiful backdrops, to play a patchwork failure of a story?

The MacGuffin of the story ... is the status of “Queen of the Stories”. Why is it significant? How can it help conquer the "Darkness" that’s also never explained? What were they on when they made this? Some things we’ll never know.

We have over a dozen characters randomly thrown in while the story is running with little to no purpose, character, or motivation. They just lift them straight out of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and smashed them together in a boiling cauldron that moonlights as a chamber pot. They're not characters. They're afterthoughts designed to occupy the space of a scene. They play so little significance for the amount of screentime they got that you could cut the numbers down to half and still retain the story.

And when I say story, I am just being polite. It’s a loose progression of events made up of dolls awkwardly shambling and talking about things that should have at the very least leave you mystified and interested even if it doesn’t make any sense (it doesn’t). It’s not engaging in the art of story-telling. At best, it’s merely explaining why one thing happened or needs to happen. At worst, it’s just plain nonsense.

This is just nonsense. It's amazing how, in trying to give conventional structure to a source story hailed as literary nonsense, they made it even more nonsensical.