Alice In Wonderland 60th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray Review & Comments

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Reviewed by Chris McEneany, 8th March 2011.
Alice In Wonderland is the very essence of childhood. All of its anxieties, woes, mysteries, magic and innocent interpretations of a devoutly sinister world surface here in Disney's painstakingly constructed visual smorgasbord of Carrol's absurd prose. It is the perfect tune-in, chill-out experience of sensory overload and stimuli-excess. It doesn't make any sense. Or it does. Or doesn't it? Whatever. It is a film that is unclouded by subtext and metaphor if you don't want it to be. Or it can be any form of psychological dissection of morality, disassociation, alienation, longing or familial isolation that you could wish for. Which is precisely why the film, as well as the book, can be loved and adored by simply anybody, any age, any religion, any world-view. Alice In Wonderland offers up ideas and food for thought with every passing frame – should you desire such things. Or, it is merely an astoundingly colourful, intensely energetic and schizophrenic romp through the permeable membranes of the imagination.

And it all looks astounding on Blu-ray. My opinion is that it doesn't seem as faithful as I had hoped – the image all high-sheen, drip-dry super-gloss that looks a little sterile and could take a bit of getting used to. But there is no escaping the riotous allure of retina-poking primaries and a picture that is a work of art come to bold and expressive life. The UK disc misses the original audio track, but the new lossless mix is still great fun and doesn't make any demands on the source that come over as either bogus or unnecessary. And the extras are a fan's delight.

Alice In Wonderland is a delinquent delight and one of the most riotously colourful feathers in Disney's cap. Highly recommended.


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I have to disagree with the comment about the animations on the documentary livening things up. The poor "talking heads" are animated all over the screen, squeezed, panned, bounced and God knows what else. It's "dumbing down for the attention deficit generation" on a whole new level. Someone reading a quote from Lewis Carroll's diary? let's scrunch him up in a corner so we can show a naff animation of each word he's reading being written out above his head. There's so much "furniture" constantly whizzing and repositioning itself on the screen it's nausea-inducing. Not a documentary so much as a sick-making fairground ride.
 

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