Netflix K-drama Alice takes viewers on a time-warping journey through the wormhole
- Martial-arts sci-fi adventure Alice follows time travellers from 2050 back to 1992 Seoul in search of a sacred book
- Kim Hee-sun, Kwak Si-yang and Joo Won star in the dimension-bending debut series
Author Lewis Carroll must be wringing his bony hands at the thought of the product-placement fortune he could have accrued from all the countless artistic endeavours inspired by his heroine, Alice.
Among the latest is, yes, Alice (Netflix), a time-warping, science-fiction caper taking us through the wormhole, rather than down the rabbit hole, from 2050 to Seoul, 1992. Having been sent back from the future, Yoon Tae-yi (Kim Hee-sun) and Yoo Min-hyuk (Kwak Si-yang) must find an ancient book – why is it almost always an ancient book? – titled The Prophecy, which permits continued time travel.
Quite how the sacred book will do this is unclear, because no one is allowed to read it. But hey, never mind, because there are enough martial arts fisticuffs, choreographed to the obligatory hard-rock soundtrack, to smooth viewers over whatever narrative hurdles crop up.
Flashy new technology clashes with old-school hardware in the 16-episode debut series of Alice, which doesn’t waste much time in suggesting a corporation (fancy that!) is really behind much of what’s going on. Throw in the fears of a well-meaning, genius physicist – why is it almost always a physicist? – concerning what has been unleashed and we’re not far from familiar sci-fi territory.
Or perhaps we’ve just gone back in time, to an off-the-peg plot.
The Mosquito Coast: a worthy remake on Apple TV+
Not all remakes are created equal. And arguably first among recent unequals is The Mosquito Coast, a seven-part Apple TV+ series recalling the Harrison Ford movie of the same name from 1986.
Beginning with a double episode on April 30 , then continuing weekly, this adventure story with a conscience tells the tale of Allie Fox, inventor and anti-consumerism evangelist, a man on the run from the big, bad United States government. Which is all very laudable, although his sceptical family, dragged along for the dangerous ride, don’t always buy into his big plan.
Adaptations prosper most when they have a solid pedigree – in this case the 1981 novel of the same name by Paul Theroux. And as if to keep quality control in the family, Paul serves as an executive producer of a series lit up by nephew Justin Theroux, whose portrayal of Fox combines exactly the right amounts of desperation, obsession, cunning, resourcefulness, altruism, naivety and unshakeable faith in his garden-shed contraptions and his belief that “disposable culture” will be the end of us all, eventually.
Trying to hasten that process are the heavily armed meatheads the fugitive family must negotiate before they can leave the US for Mexico: the Foxes soon find that the goons with guns, formed into badlands militias to live out their Wild West fantasies, aren’t there to wish them happy travels. Allie’s reasons for escaping the country where, he says, “we eat when we’re not hungry, buy what we don’t need and throw away everything that’s useful” are clearly manifold, although the precise reason for his “wanted” status isn’t given up easily.
What is obvious is the cinematic quality of a production that would sit handsomely beside its big-screen predecessor. With cinematography so attuned to light, shade and geography that it almost leaves the taste of desert dust on the tongue, this is a series to be savoured, not wasted with a viewing on a “disposable culture” mobile phone.
