Entertainment

Malice in underland

So this brunette martial arts expert walks into a bar and finds that everyone there is having their emotions sucked out of them, but they don’t know it because they’re stuck to the floor. Get it? Good.

If this scenario sounds familiar, you were either in the pitch meeting or need to up your meds.

I’m talking about SyFy’s “Alice,” a “reimagined” version of Lewis Carroll’s “Alice In Wonderland.”

Why anyone would need to reimagine perfection is as much a conundrum as the rabbit hole.

Anyway, in this version, Alice (Caterina Scorsone), who lives in what looks like the industrial section of Toronto, is a grown-up brunette martial arts instructor. This comes in handy seeing how the poor thing spends two whole nights karate-chopping bad guys.

POPWRAP chats with star Caterina

Earthling Alice got into this fix right after she turned down a ring from new boyfriend Jack (Phillip Winchester).

Hurt feelings turn into kidnapping, and Alice has to chase Jack Chase (get it?) into a window that turns into a black hole that transports them into another dimension, à la “Wonderland.”

Wonderland ain’t so wonderful. It’s ruled by the mean Queen of Caftans, I mean, the Queen of Hearts (Kathy Bates with a red wig and English accent).

Trapped in Wonderland are Earth humans who have been stolen and glued to the floor in casinos that are filled with unglued go-go girls straight out of the 1960s. All this is necessary so that the kidnapped Earth chemists (of which Alice’s long-lost father is one) can sap the humans’ emotions and bottle them.

There’s lust, happiness and so forth. These are bought and sold on the commodities exchange in a teahouse. Don’t ask.

In trying to find and rescue Jack from the queen and her court, she enlists teahouse-owner/resistance fighter, Hatter (Andrew Lee Potts), Dodo (Tim Curry) and the White Knight (Matt Frewer).

Three quarters of the movie is taken up by chase scenes — on foot, on mechanical flamingos, on horseback, on, well, you name it — while the remaining quarter includes a flabby triangle between Jack, Alice and Hatter.

Harry Dean Stanton adds big-name value, unfortunately channeling Roman Grant in a Caterpillar tuxedo.

SyFy’s modern-day “Alice” isn’t bad — it’s just silly and too long by two hours, which is a shame because it probably would have been a good one-night watch.

If you’re an “Alice in Wonderland” fan, you might want to wait until next year when Tim Burton brings to the big screen his un-reimagined version.

If not, why not give this a shot?