Alice in Wonderland (2024 film)

***Alice in Wonderland*** is a 2024 American live-action/animated fantasy adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Spielberg and Peter Barnes and produced by Tim Burton, Joe Roth, Suzanne Todd, and Jennifer Todd. It is based on the books of Lewis Carroll as well as stories and characters created by Edward Lear, Norton Juster, and Dr. Seuss. It also acts as a reboot to Disney's 2010 live-action feature film *Alice in Wonderland*, despite taking place in the same universe as the first two films.

Chloë Grace Moretz portrayed the lead role of Alice and Phebe Fabacher did her voice. Most of the cast of the Tim Burton films reprise their roles and a number of well-known performers portrayed the rest of the eccentric characters whom Alice meets during the course of the story. The films stars Michael Sheen, Tim Allen, Dick Van Dyke, Jesse Plemons, Peter Ustinov, Emily Blunt, Ben Kingsley, Adam Driver, Francis Wright, Barbara Windsor, , Christopher Lloyd, Gene Wilder, George Wendt, Robbie Coltrane and Miranda Richardson. In common with most adaptations of the book, it includes scenes and characters from *Through the Looking-Glass*. Although unlike most adaptations, this film incorporates elements from other nonsense poems and stories.

The film premiered in London at the Odeon Leicester Square on May 30, 2024, and was released in the United Kingdom and the United States through the Disney Digital 3D, RealD 3D, and IMAX 3D formats as well as in conventional theaters on June 11, 2024. The film generated over $784.23 million in ticket sales and became the fifth highest-grossing film during its theatrical run.

## Plot

In a park in England during the spring of 1915, a orphaned teenage girl named Alice with her three cats, Dinah, Snowdrop, and Raven, listens distractedly to her caregiver's history lesson, and begins daydreaming of a nonsensical world. She spots a passing White Rabbit in a waistcoat, who panics of being late. Alice follows him into a burrow and plummets down a deep vertical tunnel that has a bunch of floating objects, which becomes more well-decorated the further you go down. Upon landing on armchair covered with dry leaves in a reflected version of her own house, she finds a book containing "Jabberwocky", in mirror writing. She also observes that the chess pieces have come to life, though they remain small enough for her to pick up.

Upon leaving the house, she enters a strange multi-room corridor called Portal Hall, where she chases the White Rabbit through it's many halls. After continuing to chase the White Rabbit, she finds a red door, which has many door behind it and leads to a room with many locked doors. Alice finds a key to a tiny door, beyond which is a beautiful garden. As she ponders how to fit through the door, a bottle reading "Drink Me" appears . Alice hesitantly drinks a portion of the bottle's contents, and to her astonishment, she shrinks small enough to enter the door. However, she had left the key upon the table and is unable to reach it. Alice then discovers and eats a cake decorated with the words "Eat Me", which causes her to grow to a tremendous size. As the unhappy Alice bursts into tears, the passing White Rabbit flees in a panic, dropping a fan and pair of gloves. Alice uses the fan for herself, which causes her to shrink once more and leaves her swimming in a pool of her own tears.

As Alice continues to follow the Rabbit after encountering Captain Mouse, Captain Dodo, and their eventual a "Caucus Race", she encounters the Queen of Hearts, who impresses Alice with her ability to run at breathtaking speeds. The Queen of Hearts reveals to Alice that the entirety of Wonderland is laid out in squares, like a gigantic chessboard, and offers to make Alice a queen if she can move all the way to the eighth rank/row in a chess match. Alice is placed in the second rank as one of Queen Mirana's pawns, and begins her journey across the realm. After running into the White Rabbit again and losing him in a forest with trees and bushes that grow umbrellas, Alice meets the fat twin brothers Tweedledum and Tweedledee, whom she knows from the nursery rhyme. After reciting the long the long poem "The Walrus and the Carpenter", the brothers begin suiting up for battle due to Tweedledee claiming that Tweedledum broke his new rattle, only to be frightened away by an enormous crow, as the nursery rhyme about them predicts.

As the crow flies towards Alice, it turns into Queen Mirana, who is somewhat absent-minded but boasts of (and demonstrates) her ability to remember future events before they have happened. Alice runs off to find the Rabbit, but at the very moment of the tenth step, the Queen transforms into a talking Sheep in a small shop. Alice soon finds herself struggling to handle the oars of a small rowboat, where the Sheep annoys her with (seemingly) nonsensical shouting about "crabs" and "feathers". After the talking Sheep gives Alice an egg, she immediately encounters Humpty Dumpty, who, besides celebrating his unbirthday, provides his own translation of the strange terms in "Jabberwocky". In the process, he introduces Alice to the concept of portmanteau words, before his inevitable fall. *"All the king's horses and all the king's men"* come to Humpty Dumpty's assistance, and are accompanied by King Azaz, along with the Lion and the Unicorn, who again proceed to act out a nursery rhyme by fighting with each other. After the fight, Alice walks through town and sees a horse pulling a wagon being driven by Mr. Mulberry, which progressively becomes more elaborate. First, the horse turns into a zebra, then a reindeer, then an elephant, and finally, an elephant helped by two giraffes. The wagon changes to a chariot, then a sled, then a cart holding a brass band followed by a group of police escorts. The scene becomes a parade, as a grandstand filled with the mayor and aldermen, an airplane dropping confetti, a Chinese man, a magician pulling rabbits out of a hat, and a man with a ten-foot beard appear. Alice then notices the White Rabbit again and gives chase.

Alice tracks the Rabbit to his house; he mistakes her for his housemaid, "Mary Ann", and sends her inside to retrieve the Duchess' fan and gloves. While searching for the fan and gloves, Alice finds and eats another potion and grows giant, getting stuck in the house. Thinking her a monster, the Rabbit asks the Dodo to help expel her. When the Dodo decides to burn the house down, Alice escapes by eating pebbles that were thrown by bystanders, which turned into some more cookies that cause her to shrink to 3 inches tall. Continuing to follow the Rabbit, Alice encounters a puppy and distracts it with a game of fetch. Alice then meets a garden of talking flowers who initially welcome her with a song, but then banish her, believing that humans are a type of weed. Alice then encounters a Caterpillar smoking, who becomes enraged at Alice after she laments her small size (which is the same as the Caterpillar's), after which the Caterpillar crawls away. Before leaving, the Caterpillar advises Alice to eat a piece from different sides of a mushroom to alter her size. Following a period of trial and error, she returns to her original height and keeps the remaining pieces in her pocket. Alice arrives at the home of a Duchess, who owns a perpetually grinning Cheshire Cat. The Duchess's baby, whom she hands to Alice, transforms into a piglet, which Alice releases into the woods.

In the woods, Alice gets stuck between multiple paths and encounters the mischievous Cheshire Cat, who suggests questioning the Mad Hatter or the March Hare to learn the Rabbit's location, but is unhelpful in giving directions. Taking her own path, Alice encounters both, along with the Dormouse, in the midst of an "unbirthday" tea party celebration. The Hatter and the Hare ask Alice to explain her predicament, to which Alice tries, but becomes frustrated by their interruptions and absurd logic. As she prepares to leave, the Rabbit appears and the Hatter attempts to repair his pocket watch, which results in its destruction. Alice attempts to follow the Rabbit after he is ejected from the premises, but decides to go home instead. Unfortunately, her surroundings completely change, leaving her lost in the Tulgey Wood and she begins to cry along with many forest creatures, which vanish.

Noticing a door on one of the trees, Alice passes through and finds herself back in the room from the beginning of her journey. She is able to take the key and use it to open the door to the garden, which turns out to be the croquet court of the Queen of Hearts, whose guard consists of living playing cards. In the Queen's labyrinthine garden, Alice witnesses the Queen – whom the Rabbit serves as a chamberlain – sentencing a trio of playing cards to decapitation for painting mistakenly-planted white rosebushes red. The Queen invites a reluctant Alice to play against her in a croquet match, in which live flamingos, card guards, and hedgehogs are used as equipment. The equipment rig the game in favor of the Queen. When the Cheshire Cat appears as only a head, the Queen orders his beheading, only to be told that such an act is impossible. Because the cat belongs to the Duchess, Alice prompts the Queen to release the Duchess from prison to resolve the matter. When the Duchess ruminates on finding morals in everything around her, the Queen dismisses her on the threat of execution.

Alice leaves the croquet game and meets the Gryphon and Mock Turtle. The two sing with Alice, encouraging her and teaching her the Lobster Quadrille dance. Alice then wanders away and opens a colossal book and walks into an illustration of the woods, making her in the woods, which turns out to be the territory of the Red Knight, who is intent on capturing the "prisoner"—Alice—until the White Knight comes to her rescue. Escorting her through the forest towards the final brook-crossing, the Knight recites a long poem of his own composition called Haddocks' Eyes, and repeatedly falls off his horse. Despite his clumsiness, he encourages Alice to be brave when she goes home. Alice soon discovers and is invited to compete in a hot-air balloon race, only to crash into a dead tree on a cliff while racing the other balloons. Alice escapes the tree and encounters the weirdest sports match she had ever seen which has random nonsense sports. Alice eventually climbs many mountains and even pulls one on her back.

Alice then encounters many random things and people as she continues her journey, such as Captain Mouse lifting up a huge house with no effort and a man wearing brown that can stand upside down who is launched on a seesaw by a high-jumping pup and comes back with a friend and leaves again to attend a trial. She eventually arrives in a forest where a depressed gnat teaches her about the Wonderland insects, strange creatures part bug part object (e.g., bread and butterfly, rocking horsefly, snap dragonfly), before flying away sadly.

On the way to rank eight, she meets Mr. Brown's nephew, Alec Bings, a boy of Alice's age suspended in the air who sees through things and who will grow down until he reaches the ground. Alec gives Alice more confidence after reciting the poem "The Owl and the Pussy-cat". After bidding farewell to Alec Bings, Alice encounters the card soldiers again, who take Alice to the royal court, in which the Red Knight is put on trial after being accused of stealing the Queen's tarts. The trial is ridiculously conducted by the Queen of Hearts, and the jury is composed of all the various characters that Alice had previously met.

Alice, realizing that she has already stepped across the last brook, is automatically crowned a queen, with her clothes magically transforming into a ball gown, a magic staff appearing in her hand, and the crown materialising abruptly on her head (a reference to pawn promotion). The Queen of Hearts relentlessly confinds Alice by using word play to thwart her attempts at logical discussion. The Queen then turns the trial into an unbirthday party that will be hosted by the newly crowned Alice—of which Alice herself had no prior knowledge. Alice arrives and seats herself at her own party, which slowly turns into chaos.

Alice gradually gets more confidence and eats the mushroom pieces to grow large, momentarily intimidating the court, allowing herself increasingly frequent remarks on the irrationality of the proceedings, where she scoffs that the Queen's guard is only a pack of cards and that she is a Jerk Asshole Bad Tempered Bitchin Tyrant. However, the mushroom's effect is short-lived, so the card guards soon gang up and start to swarm all over her, but Alice escapes just in time.

Alice flees through the realm with a large crowd in pursuit. When Alice reaches the room of doors from the beginning, she notices a note that tells her to look out of the door and sees herself sleeping through the door. Alice emerges from her dream, and she returns home for tea with her sister as she ponders about whether Wonderland is real or not. Right before the credits roll, the camera pans to the location of the rabbit hole. Right at the entrance of the rabbit hole is Alice's crown, indicating that the adventure actually happened and wasn't a dream at all.