Malice in Wonderland

[Beate]

Seeing that some of us are going to see this tomorrow, it's high time to open a thread for it!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374853/

A modern take on the classic fairytale, Alice in Wonderland, set in the North East of England.

An American law student in London. Knocked down by a black cab, she wakes with amnesia in a world that's a million miles from home - Wonderland. We follow her adventures as she's dragged through an underworld filled with twisted individuals and the lowest low-lifers, by the enigmatic cab driver, Whitey. She needs to find out who she is, where she's from and use what wits she has left to get back home in one piece. As her journey progresses she discovers nothing is what it seems, realizes that fate and life are terminally entwined, and finds true love lurking in the unlikeliest place.

Staring Danny Dyer as the White Rabbit and Maggie Grace (of popular TV series Lost as Alice), Malice in Wonderland is a modern and very adult take on the classic children’s story by Lewis Carroll.

[Beate]

I emailed the lady who had sent the Winner email as it was a bit confusing (saying Kingston in the email but Greenwich on the nondescript ticket) and this is what she answered:

I’m very sorry for any confusion caused. Due to the volume of competitions we’re running for Malice and Wonderland there was bound to be a mistake somewhere, unfortunately that mistake found its way into the body of your email. This however is of no consequence to your admission providing that you have the right Greenwich ticket.

Two identical tickets, as you noticed, have been provided mainly this is to stop the inevitable question ‘Can I use one ticket?’ With little time there is a rare opportunity to answer these concerns and so I aimed to combat them with direct action and clear instruction.

The competition ran over such a short period of time that the cinemas involved will not be full despite my best efforts, the Odeon staff have also been briefed and will be ready to accept your ticket. Your night should hopefully be trouble free.

[anakin]

Presumably you could take friends then if you wanted to? You'd have to ask them about numbers of course...

[Beate]

Yeah, it's still all a bit fuzzy, no one knows how many people are actually going, I have offered up two tickets and no one has wanted them yet, but the film has a 8.0 rating on imdb so I don't think it will be a bad film. It is a bit stupid though to do such a rush job in organising a screening, wonder what brought that on? They would have had more success via SFF methinks.

[elski]

They're also giving away tickets for southampton and manchester they'll probably be empty too!
I saw an advert on the telly last night for the DVD release on monday.

[bevvy]

This really smacks of desperation. They are even giving away tickets to the afterparty!

If you want tickets to the official afterparty of Danny Dyer's new movie Malice in Wonderland on Thursday Feb 4th then simply pop along to Zebrano's, 18 Greek Street, Soho from 8pm and go up to one of the okand girls and ask them for an invite. They are a Swedish lot!!!

They are giving away 150 free tickets. You can check it out at www.okanduk.com and click on their upcoming events tab.

The afterparty starts at 11pm at the penthouse, 1 leicester square and there are a lot of celebs in attendance.

The movie premiere kicks off at 630pm at the prince charles cinema in leicester square for autograph hunters.
http://www.allinlondon.co.uk/knowledge/ ... read=11548

[anakin]

Zebrano is a great bar though. Touch expensive but it's still good!

[Beate]

Are then also giving out tickets for the premiere at Prince Charles then?

[jaybee]

I worked on this so I've got a ticket for the Premiere and After Party. We shot it back in the summer of 2008 so it'll be good to see how it finally turned out

[Beate]

http://www.viewlondon.co.uk/films/malic ... ewsletters

The ViewLondon Review

Review by Matthew Turner
03/02/2010
Opens Thursday 04 February 2010

Two out of Five stars
Running time: 90 mins

Malice in Wonderland is a nice idea that doesn't quite work, thanks to poor direction, garish production design and an awkward central performance by Maggie Grace.

What's it all about?
Directed by Simon Fellows, Malice in Wonderland stars Maggie Grace as Alice, an American law student living in London, who gets amnesia when she's hit by a taxi cab driven by Whitey (Danny Dyer).

As the title of the film suggests, this is a gangland reworking of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, so with Whitey as her White Rabbit, Alice quickly finds herself dragged into a weird underworld peopled with such characters as transvestite crime lord Hattie (the King and the Queen – played by Nathaniel Parker), dodgy fairground owner Gonzo (the Dodo – Matt King), dozy nightclub doormen Dean and Dom Tweedle (Tweedledum and Tweedledee) and night-time radio DJ Felix Chester (the Cheshire Cat – Gary Beadle), all of whom either help or hinder her on her quest to recover her memory.

The Good
Originally titled Malice in Sunderland, Malice in Wonderland is an original idea that unfortunately doesn't quite work. That said, it's fun to match up the gangland characters with their Alice in Wonderland counterparts and the film does pull off a couple of impressively groan-worthy jokes, such as Alice driving off with a truckload of prostitutes (in a mobile brothel), which becomes “stealing the tarts”.

The Bad
The performances are generally cartoonish and over the top – to that end, Matt King and Gary Beadle are probably the standouts. However, Maggie Grace is clearly out of her depth as Alice and doesn't bring anything to the character except a few gormless expressions and a general sense of awkwardness, while Dyer's twitchy sweariness is quite jarring.

Similarly, the dialogue doesn't quite do justice to the main idea and the whole thing is rather too shrill and garish to really work properly. In addition, the plot doesn't hold together too well, beyond just ticking off the characters and references and the mawkishness of the ending feels tacked on and unearned.

Worth seeing?
Malice in Wonderland is a good idea that unfortunately doesn't quite work, thanks to poor direction and a script that's not as clever or as funny as it thinks it is. Unsurprisingly, this is one of those brief-theatrical-release-before-going-straight-to-DVD releases and as such, it's really not worth seeing on the big screen.