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By James Reader

Well, out of all the Disney animated films, there has to be one, just one that you find hard to like. For me, that film is "Alice in Wonderland". While there is much to enjoy and appreciate over the runtime of the film, sadly its faults and failings are all-to-readily apparent at the same time. Of course being a personal review, these faults – as well as its successes - are only in my opinion, and everybody is entitled to either agree or disagree.

While I generally agree with Disney's choice of existing literature for their animated films, I have to question the decision to create an Alice in Wonderland film. While the story line lends itself to a multitude of interesting and colourful characters and locations – obviously appealing to any animator – the actually narrative of the text is slight to non-existent.

In both of the book, the bulk of the story is nothing more than a series of events that Alice finds herself wondering in and out of. The heroine of the story is nothing more than a cipher, having no control of any of the situations she finds herself in and constantly re-acting to characters and events, rather than pro-acting. (I also feel that Disney's next film Peter Pan suffers from the same problem to a lesser extent).

So what we end up with when viewing the film is a series of comic "shorts", each starring Alice, who acts as a "straight man" for the various comic characters and situations she finds herself sharing. The narrative strand from "short" to "short" is stretched so thin that it's almost breaking. I find it absolutely stupefying that people can criticise the plot points and stories of more recent Disney films like Treasure Planet, Atlantis or The Emperor's New Groove yet still praise earlier films like Alice in Wonderland or Peter Pan.

Although Alice has an overall quest throughout the film, namely to escape Wonderland, ultimately her quest is poorly resolved – Alice simply runs away from confrontation and 'wakes up'. Unlike other quests in the finest Disney animated films, you get the impression that Alice's quest hasn't changed her or her outlook on life at all. Compare Alice's personal 'arc' in the film to that of Simba's in The Lion King, Pinocchio, or Stitch. Of all the Disney animated films, Alice in Wonderland clearly has the most disappointing ending.

In addition to Alice's general passive manner throughout the story, never before have I heard such appalling voice acting for a major animated character. The fact that as written, Alice is such a bland character would make it hard for any voice actor to create empathy with the audience, but Kathryn Beaumont's voice acting succeeds only in distancing the character further. Perhaps, being British I'm more susceptible to Alice's faux English accent and often-patronising tone. I hope no Americans watching the film think that all English girls speak with such irritating pronunciation and demeanour.

I feel as though I've ripped into the film enough now, so it's time to point out and acknowledge some of the many successes of the film. While I may not like the voice acting of Alice, the rest of the voice acting is superb. Particular acclaim must go to the voices of The Mad Hatter (Ed Wynn perhaps best known from his Mary Poppins appearance) and The March Hare (Jerry Colonna, a popular radio personality at the time). Their performances during the tea party is totally natural and appears to be filled with such spontaneity that, combined with the excellent animation, its easy to get totally engrossed and believe in the characters 100%.what excellent animation there is in Alice in Wonderland – even now with the use of computers I think it would be hard to better the visuals of the marching card army. This sequence is, in my opinion, the best single sequence of animation Disney produced during the 1950's. And like the earlier Saludos Amigos and Three Caballeros, Disney seemingly encouraged his animators to use all their imagination, resulting in a film filled with bright colours, interesting designs and fluid animation.

Yes, Alice in Wonderland does have lots of "stand out moments", but ultimately due to the weaknesses of its story and main character, the sum is, sadly, lesser than the total of its parts.

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