When I heard that Tim Burton's version of Alice and Wonderland would be a rethinking of the classic tale with Alice revisiting Wonderland as a young woman, I decided to check out the Disney version of the story which I had not seen since I was a child. This was not one of the Disney films I remember fondly from my youth and after watching it again I can see why. Disney's animated film of the Lewis Carroll classic (which I have not read) is a trippy and psychedelic film. It begins with the young Alice daydreaming during an outdoors tutoring session and following a white rabbit into a tree and down a ditch into a world of imagination where things aren't as they are supposed to be. While in Wonderland, she meets a series of nasty characters and these meetings play out as a series of vignette. It is also a letdown that the music is forgettable. What does stand out about this picture is the animation, which must have been cutting edge in 1951. It also seemed that it stayed true to the story (from what I could tell) and I liked how the characters were British to a T. Although it is not an entirely pleasant trip, Disney's Alice in Wonderland is a journey worth taking.
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