Malice in Wonderland

Viewed at the Marche du Film, Festival de Cannes 2009

With not a lot of money but a bundle of ideas, director Simon Fellows and writer Jayson Rothwell, have come up with a massively entertaining twist on the classic tale, Alice in Wonderland. Only this time it's a young woman with amnesia, a taxi-driver, assorted gangsters, druggies and weirdos who feature.

At the same time, Malice in Wonderland stays true to the novel on which its based, proving that old ideas can still be the best; same story, new version, as it were.

Maggie Grace makes an interesting Alice, here a young American on the run from (and also towards) something, if only she knew what. Some of the dialogue between her and Whitey, the taxi driver, is excellent. Scratch that! A lot of the dialogue is excellent, with some great lines to cut out and keep for future use.

It's clear that a low budget has been made to go a long way, but view it as a lot of bang for low bucks and not as cloth being cut too thinly. What surprises about this film is just how assured it is.

Quibbles? Nothing of note, really. It would, theoretically, be nice to have seen what would have resulted had the production budget been higher, but then the film would perhaps have lost some, if not all, of its edge.

As a calling card, Malice in Wonderland shows some real talent at work. The basic question, is it worth paying to see? Absolutely!

It seems financially viable to release this now and an oversight not to, even if it is straight to DVD. With only a few short weeks until the release of Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland, anything bearing roughly the same name or subject matter is likely to gain more interest that it would do under normal circumstances. Lewis Carroll's version of Wonderland (and Alice, come to that) is altogether different here, however. This Simon Fellows directed version of the well-loved tale takes one step firmly to the dark side of humanity, edging further away from fantasy than either Lewis Carroll or Burton's interpretation of Carroll's undoubted masterpiece.

Simon Fellows gathers an eclectic cast ensemble and seems to have read through the story of Alice and then cherry-picked scenes that suit his cinematic vision and then chopped them together. Really, this boils down to two or three set pieces that make some sort of cohesive sense, with the rest just filler in-between. For all that, however, there are genuinely, but rare enjoyable moments throughout.

I'm not known for being a Danny Dyer fan, and still remain as unimpressed by him on the whole as I was before, having only been able to admire one of his delivered lines throughout the entire film. Maggie Grace plays the part of Alice, a poor little rich girl that has lost her memory after being knocked over by Whitey's (Dyer) taxi.   Sounds a world away from the usual fantasy fare, right? Well this version of Alice In Wonderland is set in modern day inner city. The White Rabbit is a taxi driver who is off to buy a cake and is very late for the party, Tweedledum and Tweedledee are both club doormen and stealing tarts in this movie is driving off in an eighteen wheeler with a collection of hookers in the back. An unusual take on the literary work, and if I'm brutally honest, more than a little bit of a mess.

The entire movie feels cluttered, unkempt and sprawling. This never feels like a fantasy, more the intermittent recollections of a hallucinating girl on a one night class A bender. It never feels magical nor enchanting or indeed any element that the original work instilled in its reader.

It would be fair to suggest that this is not at all what Felllows had wanted to do with the film, but then you do have to ask, just what was it that he was trying to achieve? From what he has delivered here, it is not easy to tell, apart from a simple circular tale that could have been about anything, at anytime, anywhere. If so, then why base it on a well loved children's fable? (See paragraph one)

The acting is roundly awful by the main players. Dyer is famous for his usually overtly violent films that require him to shout a lot, point angry fingers and throw his fists about and Grace is as wooden as another well loved children's character. Some credibility comes in the form of Pam Ferris, Fiona O'Shaughnessy, Matt King and Nathaniel Parker in their own oddly created cameos, but none make enough of an appearance throughout to save this film from its rightful place in the bowels of DVD purgatory.

In summary, avoid this if you have the option. If you have to sit through it, I'd pay it the attention it deserves and make sure you have a book handy, or if you are of an hallucinogenic bent, you may find this riveting after you have dropped a tab. I would never suggest illegal drug-taking for recreation, but really, you will need more than just your brain, ears and patience to get to the end of it.

I had never heard of this movie so I had no idea what to expect (other than some Alice in Wonderland reference), and I was pleasantly surprised. I only know Maggie Grace from her role as one of the worst characters on Lost, so I was also surprised that I could see her on film without hoping she'd get hit by a bus (I guess that means she's a good actress?) There are some truly zany characters in the movie, and you just have to roll with some of the situations, but all in all it kept me entertained from start to finish. I was kept involved enough in the story and travels of Alice that I really didn't see the ending revelation until it happened (most of the info was alluded to but never really exposed). I wouldn't call it a romance, or an action flick (although there are some violent scenes), it sort of defies description, but it's worth a watch.

I can't begin to describe this utter piece of crap (can I say crap in a review?). Yep it's Alice in Wonderland with drugs and pimps and ugly broads. Put in a few hard-core street accents and you have this train wreck.

It was moronic at best, unwatchable at the worst.

Malice in Wonderland kind of intrigued me because the idea and the thought of making a cockney-gangster version of the Alice in Wonderland story was a clever approach as I haven't heard of a version like it so it's unique. It could have went either way, it could have been something original yet different or it could have been a laughable idea that isn't interesting enough. Malice in Wonderland is pretty much the first. The story is clever yet average, it's clever the way they twisted the known tale of Alice but it didn't grip you in the first fifteen minutes, it took me about twenty minutes to actually get into the movie and no movie should take that long to get your attention. Even though it started quite slow, as time went on, it picked up the pace and started to get better. The acting is average, Danny Dyer plays Whitey (which is, as you've probably guessed, the equivalent to the White Rabbit) and yet again Danny Dyer is basically playing himself, as his character is the same as the other characters he's ever played in movies. However, Malice in Wonderland is the best he's ever been. The talent that shines throughout is the gorgeous Maggie Grace who plays the troubled twenty-year-old Alice. The characters were created cleverly to twist the characters in the story and added a hint of personality from the real world. The direction is done well and the cinematography is okay and it's clever the way they did it. I also loved how they borrowed some of the lines from the old movie and added them for the characters and I liked how it stuck to the original Alice in Wonderland plot and twisted it.

Overall, I was on and off about it before watching but after watching, I ended up liking it. It's an above-average movie and I enjoyed it. It's such a brilliant translation and you would like this movie if you liked Alice in Wonderland.

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