“Mad as a box of frogs!” as the Hatter says.
That’s the SyFy adaptation of “Alice in Wonderland,” a trippy phantasmagoria of nonsense with a subtext vaguely about liberation and immediate gratification.
“Alice,” airing 7-9 p.m. tonight and Monday, is nutty good fun if you don’t expect too much.
“Feed your head!” as the Jefferson Airplane said, with reference to Alice, Wonderland and the pills that make you larger and smaller.
That’s part of the ethos of “Alice” too, as reinterpreted by writer-director Nick Willing.
The two-night spectacle by fantastical miniseries maestro Robert Halmi Sr. is certainly not profound, but it’s not meant to be examined too deeply either.
Full of fun performances, shiny computer graphics and a heavy undercurrent of postmodern preaching, the two-part magical mystery tour will suit those who found “Tin Man” a worthy retelling of the Wizard of Oz classic.
“Alice” does to Lewis Carroll what “Tin Man” did to L. Frank Baum, only more so. SyFy sincerely hopes it duplicates the previous miniseries’ record ratings too.
Since we last took a trip through the Looking Glass, the nasty Red Queen has been re-envisioned as a sort of evil dominatrix who drugs her subjects in order to achieve total mind control over her kingdom, otherwise known as Wonderland.
The Red Queen, played with amusing gusto by Kathy Bates, rules by forcing a gambling addiction on the population. Her scientists have bottled various human emotions and affects — lust, passion, contentment, ecstasy — to keep everyone in an unconscious state. They are anesthetized by gambling, their feet magnetized to the floor before the blackjack tables.
There are more drug references too, including a giant mushroom Carroll would have approved, a missing ring bearing “The Stone of Wonderland,” and a resistance army led by the Mad Hatter.
Oh, and dinosaur-dragon beasts chasing young Alice through the woods. Downer.
Comely Canadian Caterina Scorsone (Starz’s series “Crash”) appears as Alice, making up in biceps, deltoids and general athleticism what the script doesn’t allow her in dramatic range.
Andrew Lee Potts (“Primeval”) is childlike and cutely post-punk in black eyeliner as one of Alice’s romantic interests. Philip Winchester (“Crusoe”) has less face time as Alice’s handsome boyfriend Jack, whom she chases into the world of enchantment.
Fuming, fussing and pontificating, white-haired Matt Frewer appears to be having more fun than the rest of the cast combined as the White Knight.
Tim Curry plays Dodo but would be more enticing if he were playing a darker villain; Harry Dean Stanton is well-suited to the role of Caterpillar; and Colm Meaney plays off Bates as the Queen’s husband, the King of Hearts.
Alice has daddy issues in this telling. She’s also a martial-arts master and can handle herself in a surreal fight. By the time we get to the Messrs. (Twiddle) Dee and Dum, the psychobabble regarding childhood issues is knee-deep. And the special effects are psychedelic.
There’s more green-screen action than drama in this tale as actors struggle to appear to be dangling over chasms, flying or battling monsters. But the update is bold and fanciful.
The point is the falseness of immediate gratification as a human goal — but don’t let that stop you from enjoying this silliness in the moment.
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
