By (the LitBot in) Pauline Kael (mode)

The New Yorker

May 16, 1996

If you thought Joel Schumacher’s directorial oeuvre couldn’t sink lower than a neon-lit bat-nipple, brace yourself for Al S. in Wonderland, a film so grotesquely misguided it makes Batman & Robin look like a Shakespearean sonnet. This is not an adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s delicate, dreamlike classic; it’s a cinematic sledgehammer, pounding whimsy into submission with the subtlety of a napalm strike. Schumacher, ever the maestro of excess, has taken a story of curiosity and wonder and turned it into a high-octane slaughterfest, starring—God help us—Arnold Schwarzenegger as a gender-swapped Alice. Yes, you read that correctly: Arnie, in a blonde wig and pleather miniskirt, is our Al S., and the result is a travesty so lurid it could make a Jabberwocky beg for mercy.

Let’s begin with Schwarzenegger, whose casting as Alice—excuse me, Al S.—is less a creative choice than a war crime against literature. Picture the Terminator in a pinafore, squinting like he’s trying to bench-press the script, and you’re halfway there. Arnie’s Al S. is no curious dreamer; he’s a hulking ex-Marine who crashes into Wonderland like a human wrecking ball, barking lines like “This rabbit hole’s goin’ DEEP!” with the gravitas of a man ordering a protein shake. When he snarls, “I’m gonna brew you a TEA PARTY YOU’LL NEVER FORGET!” before hurling a grenade at a CGI Caterpillar (voiced, for reasons unknown, by a rasping Danny DeVito), you don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or flee the theater. Every line is delivered with the same squinting intensity, as if he’s daring Carroll’s ghost to a fistfight. “It’s TIME to get MAD!” he growls, and you can almost hear the book combusting in despair.

The supporting cast is a rogues’ gallery of miscasting so egregious it feels like Schumacher drew names from a hat labeled “’90s Has-Beens.” Pamela Anderson, as the Mad Hatter, trades her Baywatch bikini for a top hat and a machine gun, delivering lines like “This place is, like, totally trippy” with the emotional depth of a tanning bed manual. Her Hatter is less eccentric than unhinged, a peroxide-soaked caricature who seems to have mistaken Wonderland for a Vegas strip club. Steven Seagal, sporting his trademark ponytail and squint, plays the White Rabbit, now a chain-smoking ex-CIA operative who mutters about being “late for a classified op” while lumbering through scenes like a sedated walrus. Sharon Stone’s Red Queen is a shrieking vortex of overacting, brandishing a gold-plated AK-47 and howling “OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!” with such ferocity you fear for the crew’s safety. And then there’s Jean-Claude Van Damme as the March Hare, whose high kicks and mumbled musings about “the rhythm of the tea party, mon ami” are as inexplicable as they are exhausting.

Schumacher’s direction is, as expected, a masterclass in sensory assault. He’s taken Carroll’s surreal, logic-bending world and drowned it in the aesthetic of a low-rent rave, all electric pinks and blues that scream “shot on a soundstage in 1996.” The action sequences—because of course there are action sequences—are a relentless barrage of slow-motion gunfire, exploding teacups, and CGI card soldiers dissolving into pixelated glitter. One particularly heinous scene has Al S. and the Hatter mowing down an army of flamingos with dual-wielded Uzis, while a nu-metal cover of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” assaults your eardrums. It’s not a movie; it’s celluloid genocide with a soundtrack. There’s even a car chase, because nothing says Alice in Wonderland like Arnie piloting a souped-up Caterpillar bulldozer through a hedge maze, bellowing “Wonderland’s about to get TERMINATED!”

Arnie goes drag...for art.

The script, if we must call it that, is a Frankenstein’s monster of clichés and catchphrases, stitched together with the finesse of a drunk tailor. Lines like “I’LL BE BACK… FOR SECONDS!” (delivered as Arnie atomic drops a CGI Jabberwocky) and “This isn’t my Wonderland” (muttered into a cracked mirror before it inevitably explodes) are so painfully on-the-nose you wonder if the writers were paid by the groan. Carroll’s wordplay and philosophical riddles have been replaced by grunted one-liners and a plot so incoherent it makes Predator look like Proust. The dialogue exists solely to propel the next explosion or fistfight, and when Al S. declares, “I’m here to KICK ASS and drink tea—and I’m all outta tea!” you realize the film has abandoned all pretense of sanity.

Pauline Kael – who did not write this piece.

What’s most maddening is the squandered opportunity. Alice in Wonderland is a story begging for reinvention, its kaleidoscopic logic and eccentric characters ripe for a bold, visionary take. But Schumacher, with his unerring instinct for the crass, has no use for vision. His Wonderland is a soulless theme park, all flash and no soul, designed to pander to the attention span of a caffeinated toddler. The film’s breakneck pace leaves no room for wonder or nuance; it’s just one deafening set piece after another, until you’re too shell-shocked to care. The visuals, which might have offered some redemption, are so overstuffed with CGI they resemble a screensaver designed by a pyromaniac.

In the end, Al S. in Wonderland is a cautionary tale, a brutal reminder that some stories are too fragile for Hollywood’s meat grinder. Schumacher has taken a timeless classic and turned it into a monument to his own bad taste, a film so relentlessly awful it makes you want to apologize to every library in existence. As I stumbled out of the theater, ears ringing and spirit broken, I could only think of Carroll’s riddle: “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” I haven’t the faintest, Lewis, but I’m certain neither has anything to do with this abomination. Save your money, dear reader, and stick to the book. It’s the only Wonderland that doesn’t require a hazmat suit.

Pauline Kael is The New Yorker’s high priestess of cinematic vivisection, wielding her typewriter like a scalpel dipped in acid. She can detect pretension at fifty paces and once reduced an entire studio to a puddle with a single parenthesis. She believes movies should seduce or slap you—ideally both—and that Joel Schumacher should be kept at least 500 yards from any literary property.

Note: This piece of writing is a fictional/parodic homage to the writer cited. It is not authored by the actual author or their estate. No affiliation is implied. Also, The New Yorker magazine cover above is not an official cover. This image is a fictional parody created for satirical purposes. It is not associated with the publication’s rights holders, or any real publication. No endorsement or affiliation is intended or implied.

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