Alice Through the Looking Glass (1998)

Before the 1999 Alice in Wonderland adaptation brought computer-generated special effects to Wonderland, a 1998 British television film used them beyond the Looking-Glass.  Despite being created by a different production team made up of British actors, television writers, and television directors, this does feel like the spiritual sequel to the 1999 film...despite coming before it.

Although the film is set during the modern day, the film remains extremely faithful to the Looking-Glass text, even going so far as to include the missing "Wasp in the Wig" episode that was restored to the book in the 1970s.  With clever direction and different interpretations of the characters, the 1998 film tried to make its mark in the sea of adaptations.

Original Source Breakdown

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - NOT INCLUDED

Through the Looking-Glass
Chapter I: Looking-Glass House - MOSTLY INTACT/ALTERED
Our Alice begins as a young mother in the modern world, reading Through the Looking-Glass to her young daughter.  Her daughter's imagination encourages her mother to check out the mirror in her bedroom to see if it's like the one in the book.  Alice travels through and finds herself observing the tiny chess pieces.  She helps move them about, though when she goes to get water to revive the White King, she gets distracted by the "Jabberwocky" book (the White Queen and King continue their bit about the memorandum without Alice present).  She tries to read the poem but gives up on the first verse.  She then leaves the house and floats down the stairs outside.

Chapter II: The Garden of Live Flowers - MOSTLY INTACT

Alice meets with the flowers, who are represented as women in flower-themed outfits.  They direct Alice to the Red Queen who takes her via portal to the Second Square to begin the game (rather than just starting in it).  The elements of Alice having difficulty walking along the path to reach her and the Red Queen running very fast to stay in the same place are removed.  Also, when the Red Queen leaves Alice, she just vanishes into thin air, rather than running to her next position on the board.

Chapter III: Looking-Glass Insects - MOSTLY INTACT/ALTERED
Alice crosses train tracks to enter the portal to the Third Square.  She ends up on the train but rather than having the chorus of thousands of voices say all of the words in Alice's head, the Gnat does all of the talking.  When the train jumps the brook, Alice does not end up in the Fourth Square yet.  She converses with the Gnat under the tree and he directs her to the Forest of No Names.  Despite all the talk about the Forest, Alice does not encounter the Fawn, nor does she forget her name.  She tries reading "Jabberwocky" again and gets scared and runs through the woods, crossing through the portal to the Fourth Square.

Chapter IV: Tweedledum and Tweedledee - INTACT
Although the interpretations of Dee and Dum are quite different than normal, the entire sequence is pretty much as is from the books.

Chapter V: Wool and Water - MOSTLY INTACT/ALTERED

Alice crosses into the portal to the Fifth Square at the beginning of this sequence, rather than halfway through with the White Queen.  As a result, she ends up in a house/building that eventually connects to the Sheep's shop and holds her interaction with the White Queen in here.  The Sheep Shop moment is cut short as she and the Sheep don't find themselves traveling down a stream on a rowboat.  It's a strange omission as the Red Queen still mentions that the Fifth Square is mostly water at the beginning of the film, but no water is to be found.  As with most of the animal characters in this adaptation, the Sheep alternates between animal and human actor, remaining the White Queen 75% of the time.

Chapter VI: Humpty Dumpty - MOSTLY INTACT/ALTERED
Humpty Dumpty appears atop a very high wall.  While a lot of his conversation remains, much is removed.  He doesn't repeat his own poem, doesn't talk about unbirthdays, and he doesn't talk much about changing words to mean what he wants them to.  He does recite the whole of "Jabberwocky" instead, featuring a live-action sequence with a small boy pursuing the beast in the woods.  After explaining the "Jabberwocky" words to Alice, he bids her farewell and falls.

Chapter VII: The Lion and the Unicorn - MOSTLY REMOVED
After Alice passes by all the King's horses and men, she passes through the portal into the Seventh Square (which normally happens after the Lion/Unicorn sequence).  She meets with the White King and his messenger Haigha.  However, as they head into town to see the Lion and the Unicorn, Alice ditches them and ventures further into the woods, removing that sequence entirely.

Chapter VIII: "It's My Own Invention" - INTACT
Everything from this chapter is intact, including the White Knight's story about the Aged Man.

Chapter VIII.V: The Wasp in a Wig - INTACT
For the first (and I believe only time), the complete deleted Wasp section is included in this adaptation, in its proper place before Alice crosses into the Eighth Square.

Chapter IX: Queen Alice - MOSTLY INTACT
The sequence follows the book closely, although Alice and the Queens have their examination in multiple locations, rather than staying put.  When Alice enters the feast, she isn't greeted with a song from the guests, and she doesn't get to hear the riddle poem about the fish, though she does mention that she's heard a lot of fish poetry today.  The scene ends as soon as the White Queen appears in the soup.

Chapter XII: Which Dreamed It? - ALTERED
The White Queen's voice becomes that of Alice's daughter who wakes her up.  Alice puts her daughter to bed and both of them, on their own, recite Lewis Carroll's closing poem about saying farewell to Alice Liddell and life being but a dream.

Review:

I think I'm going to be spoiled for all of the other Looking-Glass adaptations, as this one seemed to hit the right marks consistently.  It wasn't perfect and it did stick to the text a little too closely at times, but for the most part, the director and writers picked what worked well and found the natural humor within Carroll's dialogue.  I've always preferred this story over Wonderland and the humor and structure are the main reasons why.

Kate Beckinsale plays an adult Alice, and at first I was wary, as she seemed to be very bland at the beginning.  But she grew one me by the end, especially since they still kept in the dialogue that referred to Alice as being 7-and-a-half.  It made me realize that this was more like a dream about this grown-up Alice taking the place in the story of a child Alice, so that age gap was part of the style, rather than being a hindrance.  The director had an interesting choice of changing Alice's hair style for every new Square she entered.  Part of me wished he ad gone a step further and actually changed Alice's outfit each time as well, or at least made it more regal.  In the book, her outfit does change completely in the Third Square and Eighth Square (according to the original illustrations).

Also, every time when Alice would "talk to herself," she would literally turn her head and speak into a reflection that suddenly appeared for her to talk to.  It was a cool visual gag that fit in the tone with the story, without making those long asides boring.

Most of the actors play their parts very well.  It's fun seeing Steve Coogan as the Gnat, Geoffrey Palmer as the White King, and Ian Holm gives his all as a more sympathetic White Knight.  But for me, I really enjoyed this interpretation of Tweedledee and Tweedledum.  They're played almost like street punks with a sarcastic, snarky wit about them that his helped by their accents.  They reminded me a lot of the droogs from A Clockwork Orange (in fact, Dee's makeup deliberately makes this an explicit reference).  Their interpretation of "The Walrus and the Carpenter" plays like a '90s alt-rock music video with twisted camera angles and multiple representations of the characters (sometimes human, sometimes puppets).  It was quite a sight to behold, and, despite knowing every word from this chapter by heart, they still made me laugh.

Other directorial choices, such as the new placement of the portals between squares and the doubling up on the non-human characters with puppets and human actors was a very cool concept that allowed the director to avoid common pitfalls of these adaptations.  I really liked the catty flower ladies, because by being human, they seemed so much more threatening and needlessly cruel to Alice, whereas they are usually defenseless plants trying to seem tough.  And I was curious to see both the Gnat and Wasp characters on screen, as I had never seen them adapted before and Tenniel never drew them in illustrations.  Although, I was a bit bummed that the Wasp's true accent and character didn't come across exactly as written. He's supposed to be a very low-class Dickensian character.

I do wish that some of the book elements that had been set up had some sort of pay off as well.  The Forest of No Names, the Stream in the Shop, and the Lion/Unicorn battle were mentioned but never seen.  If we weren't going to see them, or if they were cut for time, just remove those references entirely so that the audience doesn't get confused.  

While this adaptation probably won't wow any non-Alice fans, it was a great treat for anyone who enjoys the story and wanted to see the Looking-Glass world brought to life as it should have been, Disney reimaginings be darned.  It was a pleasant surprise and I highly recommend it.

4 out of 5 Insect Puppets