DVD Corner

Alice Blu-ray Review

“Jan Svankmajer’s Alice” is a strange take on “Alice In Wonderland.”

In “Jan Svankmajer’s Alice,” the film roughly follows the age old story that virtually everyone has grown up with. As you’d expect, a young Alice follows the White Rabbit (who is stuffed in this version) into a magical and nightmarish world where she encounters a giant doll, a sock caterpillar, shrinking potion, a marionette Mad Hatter, the Hare, a rat, freaky skeletal creatures, and the Queen and King of Hearts? Is this journey all a dream? Is it real? That’s the question.

Visionary Czech animator Jan Svankmajer’s version of “Alice” has become a bonafide cult classic over the years and it’s not hard to see why. It’s an ultra weird, creepy, surreal, grungy adaptation that boasts some truly spectacular visuals. In fact, the production design, sets, and stop motion animation are easily the highlight here as they prove to be both imaginative and wonderfully detailed. Just look at the trinket filled rooms and the card character designs as an example.

With all of that said, “Alice” is not without problems. Not only do scenes tend to linger on longer than they need to (see the first half-hour), but the narration/dialogue style never quite works.  Instead of the characters being individually voiced, Alice provides the dialogue for the characters. As a result, we have to watch numerous cuts to Alice’s mouth saying “Said the Rabbit” or “Said the Mad Hatter” over and over and over. It becomes very tedious and unnecessarily takes you out of the story by taking up valuable screen time.

Video/Audio:

Presentation: 1.:33:1 108op. How does it look? The restored 1988 film looks extraordinarily beautiful in hi-def. The stop motion animation looks particularly impressive here.

Audio Track: LCMP 2.0 Mono. How does it sound? The audio track is decent at best. There’s really not much in the way of sound in this film aside from a wretched English dub.

The only extras are First Run Features trailers.

Overall Thoughts: “Alice” is an admirable film, but suffers from a flawed storytelling approach.

June 16, 2014 - Posted by nicklyons1 | Blu-Ray review | Alice Blu-ray Review, Alice In Wonderland, Alice In Wonderland Stop-Motion Animated Film, Jan Svankmajer's Alice Blu-ray Review, The White Rabbit