The 13th animated Disney classic is, without a doubt, one of the most original, distinctive, imaginative and creative movies Disney ever made. It isn't a perfect movie but it sure makes the difference.

Through the years the successive re-releases of this movie saved it, giving it the deserved credit and success, but when this initially came out in 1951 it was a failure and largely criticized.

I heard that Walt Disney didn't like very much the character Alice because in his opinion she was cold. I don't see why Walt Disney had that opinion about her. There's nothing cold about her. I think she's a nice little girl. When she falls in despair, it's easy to feel sorry for her.

Some parts of this movie are a bit weak, but that's not a major flaw. My least favorite character is obviously the Queen of Hearts. I don't like her at all. I guess nobody likes her, because she is meant to be hateable.

But apart that this movie is full of awesome characters: the Cheshire Cat, the Dormouse, the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, the Caterpillar, the White Rabbit, the army of cards, Alice, Alice's sister, Dinah, the Doorknob and even strange creatures like a dog-broom, duck-horns, bird-mirrors, bird-cages, bird-pencils, etc...

The creativity of this movie is not only on its peculiar characters, but also on its extravagant details: sceneries, gardens, places, original designs, etc...

What also makes this movie so different is the personality of the characters: they're all mad, but hilarious (except the explosive Queen of Hearts, of course) and they do the craziest and silliest things. That makes them so funny. The silly humor of this movie is very classic, which is another big attribute.

Only in "Alice in Wonderland" you can see hilarious things such as the unbirthday tea party celebrated by the Mad Hatter, the March Hare and the cute Dormouse.

Where else you can see such an enigmatic and cool character like the Cheshire Cat, a mad character with great sense of humor and the power of becoming invisible? Only in "Alice in Wonderland", of course.

Dinah (Alice's kitten) is one of the cutest Disney animals. She was drawn to be cute and adorable, like Figaro and others. The way she movies her little paws is so lovely and so is the way she chases Alice. To see kittens like Dinah and Figaro makes you wish to have a cat like that.

Richard Haydn is hilarious as the Caterpillar, a character who speaks in a very calm way, but with a voice that seems to come from his nose and a short temper.

The great Sterling Holloway has one of his most spectacular performances ever as the voice of the amazing Cheshire Cat.

The unforgettable Ed Wynn gives such an energetic performance as the voice of the Mad Hatter and Jerry Colonna is great as the March Hare's voice.

Bill Thompson is cool as the White Rabbit's voice. But I must say that Kathryn Beaumont is wonderful as Alice's voice, James MacDonald is fabulous as the Dormouse's voice, Joseph Kearns is funny as the Doorknob's voice and Heather Angel is awesome as the voice of Alice's sister. They're all great Disney legends.

Alice one day while bored by the riverbank sees a white rabbit wearing a waistcoat and carrying a pocket watch. Out of curiosity Alice follows the rabbit down a rabbit eventually winding up in Wonderland a place of utter ridiculousness inhabited by characters who are stupid, crazy, or both.

Released in 1951, Alice In Wonderland adapted from the books Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Caroll had been a long gestating project as far back to the day's of Disney's Laugh O Gram studios in the 20s where the works loosely inspired Disney's early Alice Comedies. Attempts had been made by Disney to adapt the story to feature length with a preliminary outlines produced prior to the release of Snow White that were ultimately scrapped due to mitigating circumstances. While adaptations of Alice in Wonderland have been made before and since the 1951 Disney film, few, if any, of them have been as well regarded with the Disney version being the most fully realized version of the literary nonsense of Lewis Caroll.

Much like the source material, the story in Alice in Wonderland is less a straightforward narrative and more an excuse to showcase surreal imagery counter balanced against the normality and grounding of Alice who serves as our straight man to nonsense and insanity of Wonderland and its crazed inhabitants. Kathryn Beaumont voices the titular Alice and serves as an effective audience proxy whose down to earth no-nonsense delivery and insatiable curiosity makes her both an effective story engine to move the journey along as well as give the audience a grounding agent to give meaning, purpose, and weight to the surreal encounters of her journey.

Artistically speaking this is Disney's animation at its most unrestrained. Much like Three Caballeros Alice in Wonderland never sits still always keeping itself moving forward to the next bizarre head scratching tangent animated with the intensity of a technicolor fever dream. Unlike Three Caballeros however, the movie wisely gives us a grounding element with Alice and gives breaks in between the more outlandish tangents so the movie never gets exhausting. The animation used to bring Wonderland to life is very striking as Wonderland itself is very dark with many scenes having pitch black or dark black drops that work in contrasting against the purposefully more colorful and energized inhabitants. Every character and encounter stands out be it the petty, jealous, bad tempered Red Queen, the giddy gleeful mania of Mad Hatter and March Hare, or the seeming omnipotent Chesire Cat who's as powerful as he is crazy. Every encounter Alice faces leaves an impression with even the smallest (quite literally in some cases) leaving an impact.

Alice in Wonderland is a classic example of Disney animation and nonsensical story telling perfectly combined into an unforgettable experience. While not Disney's first attempt at feature length narrative nonsense, it's without question the best example of it produced on this scale up to this point and makes welcome viewing for any animation enthusiast.

No wonderland is sane, certainly not from the mind of Lewis Carroll, and the Disney version of this classic children's novel is certainly something that adults who see it after having seen it as a child can enjoy it in a completely different way. Elements of the actual story are more adult oriented anyway which is why this book is taught in adult literature classes labeled as children's literature. There's also a reason why certain acid rock songs use Alice in Wonderland as a reference to drug trips.

Disney's version certainly has to appeal to children so the adult elements are somewhat toned down even though much of the freaking nature of it still exists for them to pick up and for children to just look on perplexed. It's basically a non-structural story, a series of events that occurs when Alice falls into the rabbit hole and tries to get out after her series of weird adventures.

For fans of classic movies, you'll recognize some obscure character actors providing the voices, particularly Doris Lloyd as one of the flowers and Sterling Holloway ("Winnie the Pooh") as the Cheshire cat. Who better to voice of Mad Hatter than Ed Wynn and he actually looks like the character he's voicing. But the best material goes to Verna Felton as the queen of hearts, and she is a maddest of them all both in temperament and in sanity.

Kathryn Beaumont, who voices Alice, doesn't have the strongest singing voice, but she's delightfully acerbic in how she deals with some of the weird situations surrounding her. This isn't notable as far as the songs are concerned anyway so you won't be singing any of the songs even though the flower chorus number and the walrus and the carpenter are very well done. I've seen at least half a dozen Alices over the years, and they are all unique in nature, but this being Disney gives it the label of an instant classic.