Returning alongside Wasikowska for Alice Through the Looking Glass are fellow Alice in Wonderland stars Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, Rhys Ifans, Helena Bonham Carter, Stephen Fry, Michael Sheen, Timothy Spall and, in one of his final performances, the late Alan Rickman. Alice will turn to Time, played by Sasha Baron Cohen, in order to achive this mission.
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In the real world of 18th century England, Alice Kingsleigh is a captain of an English merchant ship. She is the very definition of the word spunky, a fearless adventurer who has defeated pirates and met royalty and takes on time travel with the same forthright confidence with which she seems to do everything else.
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. Mysteriously missing from the group is Hatter (Johnny Depp).
So Alice steals this machine to careen into the past and attempt to correct the original sins of Underland, even after learning that her actions might trigger a catastrophe. Using an intricate, steampunk-y device known as the Chronosphere – which resembles an open-air version of the Bathysphere from Bioshock – that is basically a seafaring vessel through which the user can navigate the time-space continuum. What follows is an epic journey in search of “The Hatter’s” parents.
Curiously lacking a sense of the “uncommon nonsense” and freakish fun of the source novel, Alice Through The Looking Glass falls short of its potential.
Alice in Wonderland took around $1 billion in revenues, wit Tim Burton as the director. The costumes and the makeup are top notch. Alice’s temporal adventures involve navigating the Ocean of Time, where the 3-D effects pay off. Sit back and enjoy. These “minutes” can combine to make a enormous, transformer-like creature called “hours”.
Depp is wasted here, spending most of his time sick in bed while other characters mourn his impending death. This is a movie devoid of wonder and whimsy – a key element in any Carroll adaptation you would think.
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Time, in the figure of Sacha Baron Cohen’s frightful man-machine, leaps about through various contraptions and gyrations. “So I said great, I won’t do that, I’ll shoot on blue, so we shot this movie on blue screen, which I’m here to say is really a lot easier”. But in this sequel, six years later, not only has James Bobin replaced Burton but the magic has gone as well.
