NBC transports 'Alice' to a lavish Wonderland

Web posted February 27, 1999

By Susan King
Los Angeles Times

HOLLYWOOD -- Not only did director Nick Willing want his version of Alice in Wonderland to be as faithful to the classic Lewis Carroll book as possible, he also wanted it to be a celebration of the artists who have been influenced by the British author's work.

In the three-hour spectacular, premiering at 8 p.m. Sunday on NBC (WAGT-TV, Channel 26), Mr. Willing pays homage to the surreal inventiveness of Terry Gilliam (Time Bandits), the fanciful romanticism of Jean Cocteau (Beauty and the Beast) and even the comedies of director Frank Capra (Mr. Deeds Goes to Town).

The courtroom scene in which Sir Jack, the Knave of Hearts, is on trial for stealing some tarts, Mr. Willing says, is sheer screwball comedy. ``It's like one of those Cary Grant-Katharine Hepburn movies where you have this kind of flustered judge who doesn't really know what's going on,'' he adds.

``As I read the book and the script, I could see all of this stuff, so I used it all in the film to try and get, if you like, a kind of very rich flavor to the thing with all of these different ingredients, all of them working to one end.''

Alice in Wonderland is the latest lavish adaptation of a literary classic from executive producer Robert Halmi -- the man behind the popular, special-effects-laden Gulliver's Travels, The Odyssey and Merlin.

Tina Majorino (Waterworld) stars as the young Alice, who is terrified at the prospect of having to sing in front of a group of her parents' snobby house guests. Until, that is, a certain white rabbit crosses her path and Alice's dreamlike adventure begins.

Also on hand in the all-star cast is Whoopi Goldberg as the Cheshire Cat, Robbie Coltrane as Tweedledum and George Wendt as Tweedledee, Ben Kingsley as the Major Caterpillar, Miranda Richardson as the Queen of Hearts, Martin Short as the Mad Hatter and Gene Wilder as the Mock Turtle.

Jim Henson's Creature Shop designed the fanciful creatures that inhabit Alice's Wonderland, and London's FrameStore supplied the 875 digital effects -- 400-plus more than last year's Merlin.

Once his cast was in place, Mr. Willing spent a lot of time discussing Alice with the 14-year-old star.

The director, says Tina, wanted to keep Alice as realistic as possible ``so that characters come across 10 times crazier than they really are,'' says Tina, who thought it was ``cool'' to play one of literature's icons.

``We wanted to make sure we kept putting in the whole thing that she is nervous about going to sing,'' says Tina. ``So the moral of all of this is to face your fear.''

Because Alice's fears are such a focal point -- and it holds truer to Carroll's vision -- this version is far darker and scarier than the light, bright Walt Disney animated version.

``The whole thing with the darkness of the film is because we didn't want it to be perfectly fairy tale-ish anymore,'' explains Tina.