A suitably madcap ride through the trippy underground scene with Alice, if not an especially deep or meaningful one. I'm sure we can all identify the most famous beats, or at least vaguely recall them with a little nudge - cheshire cat, late for a date, eat me, drink me, off with their heads - but what of the larger narrative? Uh, something about a rabbit hole, a caterpillar with a hookah and a trial? It's okay, I forgot the particulars of the over-arching storyline, too. Those are tough to remember because they don't exist. The whole film is just an assortment of scattered episodes, loosely related by a loopy shared disposition and the presence of one well-dressed, blonde-haired little lady. Alice basically tumbles into a new room, encounters strange sights and sounds, causes a mess, fails to resolve anything and then tumbles out the exit.

The creative team does their part to make those interludes stimulating, using wild, colorful animations, fittingly offbeat character designs, strangely beautiful songs and raucous vocal performances, and that's worth a lot. Prime Disney feature animation is deserving of one's time, even without the support of a well-composed story. As a whole, well, there's a reason this found such widespread appreciation as a head film. Nice to gaze at, but the viewer must provide their own context.