SummaryWonderland explores, in "Rashomon"-like fashion, the brutal multiple murders that took place high atop Wonderland Avenue in L.A.'s Laurel Canyon during the summer of 1981. At first the case seemed to involve only the usual strung-out drug dealers and party hounds, but it quickly became elevated to classic L.A. noir when it was discovered to be c... Read More
Directed By:James Cox
Written By:James Cox, Captain Mauzner, Todd Samovitz, D. Loriston Scott
Wonderland
Metascore
Mixed or Average
43
User score
Mixed or Average
6.0
My Score
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Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
43
14% Positive
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
58% Mixed
21 Reviews
21 Reviews
28% Negative
10 Reviews
10 Reviews
100
When you watch Wonderland, going back twenty years plus, you think you're in for some paleontological expedition. Yet, thanks to James Cox's considered and adept direction, a cast and script that never cheats the experience or realism of Hollywood's enigmatic underbelly -- the drama of the 1981 Wonderland murders is de-petrified.
58
The film is so truncated, so obsessed with style and composed of so many self-contained episodes that it fails to say anything new.
50
Cox and three others have produced a swift and economical script, but it's just porn with a different money shot--not graphic violence per se but the sort of blood-soaked crime scene that sells true-crime paperbacks.
50
Has absolutely nothing to say about its characters and their lamentable actions.
40
Jonesing for headlines and gossip-buzz, Wonderland is too look-Ma for its own good -- the simple story of a doomed hop-hog over his head in bad shit could've hit the nerve if left to tell itself.
38
The problem is that there's not a sympathetic character among the nasty, brutish males. And the women, except for a flashy cameo by a swimsuit-clad Paris Hilton, are given short shrift.
20
Overblown, overheated, overdirected, overacted, overlong.
User score
Mixed or Average
6.0
41% Positive
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
41% Mixed
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
18% Negative
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
Sep 5, 2024
4
Val Kilmer plays a drugged-up, bottomed-out John Holmes in this loose telling of the brutal 1981 Wonderland murder case. Featuring a number of competing perspectives about what exactly led to the killings, including several different versions of the same scene, the film's idea is to leave ultimate judgment to the audience. Instead, the lack of conviction just results in a hazy, jumbled, inconclusive mess of rumor and uncertainty. Kilmer is miscast as the shady, self-serving loser at his wits' end, constantly turning on the charisma when his character should be cowering and sniveling. His big-name supporting cast produces similarly phoned-in performances, while a glut of gimmicky after effects gives the whole picture the kind of sparkly, overproduced sheen that's usually reserved for car commercials. A drab, ambiguous, morally vacant jumble that tugs its barely-famous subjects' coat tails for as long as it can.
Production Company:
- Lionsgate
- Emmett/Furla Oasis Films
- Epsilon Motion Pictures
- Killer Films
Release Date:Oct 3, 2003
Duration:1 h 44 m
Rating:R
Tagline:The '80s - unplugged. The murders - unveiled. The legend - unzipped.
Awards
Prism Awards
• 2 Nominations
Golden Trailer Awards
• 1 Nomination
