Alice Through the Looking Glass [PG]

Years after her last visit to Underland, Alice’s life has been one impossible adventure after another on the high seas. But things are about to get more impossible than ever before. During a business meeting, Alice slips through a looking glass into Underland to discover that the Hatter is in trouble. In order to save her truest friend, she must travel back in time and find the Hatter’s family. But the impossibilities become bigger as she has to race against Time himself as well as face an old nemesis. 

Keeping in mind that the sequel is never as good as the first movie and the only thing the first Alice had going for it was that it won the Academy Award for Best Achievement in Costume Design and Best Achievement in Art Direction as well as a nomination for Best Achievement in Visual Effects, I wasn’t expecting a lot from this movie. 

Director James Bobin took a bit of an almighty gamble in making a Through the Looking Glass to follow on from Tim Burton’s adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s classic and from whichever angle you look at this movie, the risk was unjustifiable. No, Disney. Bad Disney. 

My partner made the comment, after seeing this film that, due to its being adapted over and over for screen, Alice In Wonderland has become more of an aesthetic than a multi-interpretational work of wondrous literature. Think about it; as soon as you say ‘Alice’ or ‘Wonderland’ the mind immediately is flooded with images of tea parties, vanishing cats, and living decks of cards. It’s a popular theme for 21^st birthday celebrations and such and whilst this can be considered as a credit to Carroll’s literary genius and imagination, it has overexposed us to the stories and the characters so by the time Burton came along with another adaptation of it, audiences were a bit weary and it didn’t really spark a lot of excitement. 

Now, five years later, we have this half-hearted and just ugh-inducing loose adaptation, which I shall now proceed to rip to shreds. 

First, the film is in no way a close adaptation to Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass. True, all versions of Alice in Wonderland have been a mash-up of the two novels, but this film is an entirely new story that just uses the characters from Carroll’s imagination. And the story is weak as a stillborn to say the least. An uninspired hero’s journey coupled with a massively pointless redemption tale, it’s my belief that this film was made on a dare. Hey Bobin, bet you a million you can’t make a movie that features classic characters whilst simultaneously butchering the beloved novel they come from! Oh congrats mate, you did. 

Everything about the story was weak, weak, weak. Feeble moral connections with the real world, no real conflict, haphazard revelations, practically zero character development, and heroes and ‘villains’ alike that couldn’t inspire a drowning person to reach for the floating doughnut thrown to them makes for a very dispiriting movie experience. 

About fifteen minutes into the film, you get the sense that the actors share in this opinion about the story because, aside from Mia Wasikowska and Sacha Baron Cohen –must give credit where credit is due- absolutely no one put in any effort whatsoever into their performance and that faithlessness and lack of drive just sours the film all the more. 

Where the first film was recognised for its achievement in visual effects, this movie shoves us further and really overuses the computer wizardry. Whilst I will admit that the CGI surrounding Sacha Baron Cohen as Time was pretty cool, the entire film is just saturated in special effects to the point where it’s replacing organic talents like costume and makeup design. 

At the end of the day, this movie has really nothing going for it. 

Starring Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Sacha Baron Cohen, Rhys Ifans, Matt Lucas, Linsday Duncan, Leo Bill, Geraldine James, and featuring the voice talents of Timothy Spall, Barbara Windsor, Michael Sheen, Stephen Fry, and Alan Rickman (R.I.P.), Alice Through the Looking Glass is a stillborn film. Whilst it’s filled with adventure, comedy, larger than life CGI, makeup, costumes, and artwork, and ‘drama’, it sadly lacks life.