Screenwriter Linda Woolverton (“Beauty and the Beast”) has again disposed of the source material in favor of something more linear – a story about Alice (Mia Wasikowska) looking for Hatter’s (Johnny Depp) family.
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Iracebeth, the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) returns in Disney’s Alice Through the Looking Glass. Alice (Mia Wasikowska) is also something of an action hero, which puts a small dent into the annual argument that women are not reasonably represented in film. The film’s wobbly plot has something to do with Alice traveling back and forth in time to discover what happened to the Mad Hatter’s family.
With its emphasis on trippy visuals and odd creatures (a grinning cat that can turn invisible, a blue caterpillar that smokes a hookah, a “Jabberwocky”), Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland lends itself to the world of cinema. Unfortunately, neither actor is Johnny Depp, so there seems to be the thinking that the audience deeply cares about a deeply irritating character who looks like the offspring of Carrot Top and Bat Boy.
Can Alice save her dear friend the Hatter and his family as she literally races with time?
“Alice really reminds me of my daughter in the way she approaches life….”
What has made the stories of Lewis Carroll endure for all these years is the sheer lunacy of Wonderland and its residents, along with the strongest sense of disorientation this side of hallucinogenic drugs. “I have like, a new – not new anymore – apartment and I was slowly furnishing my apartment from some furniture that I have from Crimson Peak and Alice in Wonderland”, Wasikowska said. So the film becomes a race as Alice tries to help the Hatter, pursued by Time, with the Red Queen and others popping in and out.
Carroll’s original book is a masterful tale of Alice and the weirdlings of Wonderland played out as if the world were a giant chess board.
Tim Burton has taken more of a back seat in this follow up with the title of executive producer and has handed the directing reigns over to British director James Bobin, The Muppets (2011), Muppets Most Wanted (2014), Flight of the Conchords and the Ali G Show.
“One of the things that I love about the movie is you can’t change the past”, Hathaway told E! “I thought I was too old for Disney movies now, that I would see all the strings and I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it anymore”.
What’s left is Cohen’s failed attempt at playing Time as another quirky character. This sums up the message of the movie and the magic in all Tim Burton movies.
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“Alice Through the Looking Glass” isn’t bad and, in fairness, does feature an inspired moment or two, but the reality is it doesn’t get much more unnecessary than this.
