This opulent TV production proves once again that Lewis Carroll's children's books defy translation to the screen. While reading bedtime stories to her daughter, Alice (Kate Beckinsale) stares into the child's looking glass and is magically transported to the other side of the glass. Finding herself in a not-so-parallel Universe, Alice trades verbal jabs with such short-tempered royals as the White King (Geoffrey Palmer), the White Queen (Penelope Wilton) and the Red Queen (Sian Phillips). In this odd kingdom where nonsense is the principal language, Alice embarks across a vast chessboard and sets forth to become a queen. The first hurdle she must overcome is acting as referee to squabbling brothers Tweedle Dum (Gary Olsen) and Tweedle Dee (Marc Warren), who waste her time by reciting the "Tale of the Oyster." After debating with the White Queen in her curiosity shop, Alice tries to counsel the highly placed Humpty Dumpty (Desmond Barritt); following Humpty's famous fall, Alice encounters the equally clumsy White Knight (Ian Holm). The gallant oaf presumptuously battles the Red Knight (Greg Wise) in hopes of claiming Alice as a prize, and though he has trouble even staying astride his horse, the White Knight triumphs and offers Alice safe passage. After reciting a poem about a befuddled old man, he leaves her in the company of Wasp (Ian Richardson), a curmudgeon wearing an improbable yellow wig. At her final stop, the two Queens challenge Alice to a pop quiz before crowning their new queen; at the celebratory feast, the pudding accuses Alice of cannibalism. Alice is relieved to wake up in her own home. Witty art direction and director John Henderson's bewitching use of outdoor locales are this handsome failure's not-quite saving graces. Henderson misapplies Richard Lester's (HELP, PETULIA) signature frenetic style to the surreal tale, and the casting of an adult actress as Alice simply doesn't work — lovely though she is, Beckinsale is the least likely kid-flick heroine since Diana Ross's Dorothy in THE WIZ (1978). --Robert Pardi
