Johnny Depp returns as the Mad Hatter and Helena Bonham-Carter and Anne Hathaway are the Red and White queens.
Advertisement
Curiouser and curiouser. The colorful live-action Disney film “Alice Through the Looking Glass”, coming six years after its predecessor “Alice in Wonderland” (directed by Tim Burton, who wisely sat this one out), somehow manages to be at once chaotic and boring.
Ultimately, “Alice: Through the Looking Glass” is the worst example of a would-be summer movie blockbuster: An overproduced spectacle in search of an elusive story.
This time, travel experience will allow Alice to discover many secrets about her friend’s past. Directed surprisingly haphazardly by “Muppets” director James Bobin, and written equally so by Linda Wolverton, the film is unfortunately devoid of charm and whimsy and never seems to quite come together.
Sacha Baron Cohen, known for his satirical characters such as Ali G and fake Kazakh reporter Borat, is a new addition to the cast, playing the tick-tocking Time. The muddled script by Woolverton has Alice stealing a time traveling device to focus on the Red Queen’s (Helena Bonham Carter) origin more than Hatter’s woes.
The story resumes after spending about three years sailing the world as the captain of a merchant ship, through a magical glass. And I have to say the 3D conversion work here is outstanding, the best I have ever seen.
Packed with candy-coloured 3-D dreamscapes, outlandish costumes, and hyperactive characters, Alice Through the Looking Glass is the Slurpee equivalent of movie-going-and depending on your mood, it might inflict a similar brain freeze.
Getting back to Wonderland should be the start of the good times but the Hatter (Johnny Depp) is feeling peaky and Alice is quickly on a quest to find his family. Let us know what you think.
With Tim Burton acting as producer and not director of this film, it’s more chaotic and less thrilling than it’s predecessor, but watching Alice reunite with her old pals – such as Cheshire Cat and Absolem – is as comforting as warm tea and scones on a stormy night.
These new, decidedly non-wondrous layers are revealed once Alice, having first escaped the real world through a looking glass so as to technically satisfy the film’s title, uses a “chronosphere” (it’s sort of a steampunk gyroscope trinket) to jump back in time.
Advertisement
Curious and curiouser, it also makes Mad Hatter an inactive participant in his own rescue. Hatter, who thought his family members long dead, has reason to believe they may still be alive, and the realization has thrown him into a deep depression. Burton – who produces – does not return as the director.
