Alice Through The Looking Glass - movie review
Alice Through The Looking Glass
Plot: Alice returns to the whimsical world of Wonderland and travels back in time to save the Mad Hatter.
Cast: Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter
Director: James Bobin
Rating: PG
Runtime: 1hr 53 mins
Release Date: Friday 27th May 2016
In 2010, Disney launched a new campaign of theirs by transforming their popular animated films into live action adaptations. Alice In Wonderland was their first attempt helmed by Tim Burton. Then there was Maleficent, Cinderella and finally The Jungle Book. In my opinion, I thought Maleficent was the only bad film of the bunch but never did I think Alice In Wonderland needed a sequel. That was, until it grossed over $1 billion. From then on, I expected it to happen. Six years later, Alice Through The Looking Glass has arrived and I was wishing to leave.
When Alice finds herself transported back in Wonderland, she must help The Mad Hatter become himself again through the use of time travel. Mia Wasikowska reprises her role as Alice and she's not a major problem in the film. In no way does she make the film any worse but Wasikowska doesn't do anything to make it better. Instead, she's just there. However, whilst her performance is mediocre at best, the way her character is written makes me now HATE Alice. I'll cover that in more depth later on, but almost everything she did infuriated me. Aside from Alice, the attention is also placed upon The Mad Hatter who Johnny Depp once again plays. Love him or hate him, Depp is a character actor and he definitely becomes The Mad Hatter. The best way to explain his performance in the sequel and if it's good or not is that if you liked him in the first film, you'll probably like him in this. If you hated Depp in the original, this really isn't going to change your mind. I found Depp fine in both films. He's eccentric, bonkers and utterly crazy which suits that character. It's really going to put some people off with his varying accents and different emphasis' on odd words. Putting all of his personal life and controversy with Depp right now aside, he's decent in the film but not strong enough to significantly impress me.
Helena Bonham Carter gave my favourite performance in the first film. I found her funny and true to the character of the Red Queen. I'm not sure whether it's the loss of Tim Burton as a director or she just didn't bother, but the Red Queen spends her time shouting and moaning and whining and crying and throwing a tantrum constantly. She made my head ache and ears shudder with pain whenever she opened her incredibly large mouth. The film also focuses on the Red Queen's sister, The White Queen (Anne Hathaway), with a bit of backstory given to them both. I've seen many films with Hathaway involved but in this, I have never seen her looked so bored. Her performance would go from one extreme to the other. In one moment Hathaway would act as if she was catatonic and then in a scene later, would wonder around the set like someone tripping on acid at Coachella. I really didn't like this film but one of the very few bright spots was Sacha Baron Cohen's performance as Time. His accent may be a little dodgy like a cross between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Borat but his character seemed the most relatable. Yes, of all of the characters featured in this film, a clockwork man who controls time was the one I connected to most. It may seem like he is a villain but the film never presents him like that. But this whole dynamic of his character will feature again later in the review, in a small rant of mine. Other voices and faces appear again in the same roles as before but there are too many mention and none of them were that good nor bad to include. However, perhaps the most touching moment of the film, (albeit inadvertently) was to hear Alan Rickman's voice one final time. This may not have been a deserved film for him to depart on but to hear him for the last time is bound to give you some goosebumps.
Right, so before I begin my rant which explains my absolute hatred for this film, I have a couple of things to mildly complain about. Firstly, the whole time travel aspect is wasted and makes about as much sense as Donald Trump running for President. Everything seems over convoluted to the point of madness leaving this film as a sloppy and dull mess. I've not read the book that this is based on but if it strays from the book, it sucks. If it sticks very closely to the book, it still sucks. Bobin as a director has proved himself in the past with his successful Muppets film but here, he just doesn't do a good job. The film looks incredibly basic and safe rather than the daring approach Burton took. He struggles to get good performances out of his actors so much so, generic doesn't even begin to summarise this film. As for the little back stories of some characters, they aren't needed. I didn't care about them in the first film so why would they expect my opinion to change for this? The film spends too much time focusing on Hatter and his family which then amounts to nothing and the film dissolves into catastrophe. The entire third acts rests heavily on stealing jam tarts as a significant catharsis. JAM FREAKING TARTS! Now, it's time for the rant. As I mentioned when talking about Alice and Time, their characters seem very mixed and confused as to who they are meant to be. The aim of the film is to make Alice travel through through time with the personified Time racing after her to stop her because he's evil. Except that wasn't the case in my opinion. I thought Alice was acting incredibly selfishly and made countless stupid mistake which greatly contrasts her usual characteristics and I found myself siding with Time, wanting him to succeed. I wanted the villain to win. Shame on you movie. Shame on you.
I am incredibly disappointed with this sequel because I actually enjoyed the first one so it sucks to see the franchise fall apart like this. None of the actors care about what they're doing and the director struggles to keep it all in place. The plot is full of issues and worst of all, I was ridiculously bored. The credits were easily my favourite part of the film, and that isn't just because I like Pink's song.
My Verdict: 2.5/10
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