Alice Through The Looking Glass (2016) Film Review

The prospect of a sequel to Alice in Wonderland has always been an intriguing decision by Disney because there was nothing about it that screamed out "sequel" other than its alarmingly-high box office. Yes, believe it or not, but the first film, released in 2010, managed to break into the $1bn club despite having an unknown lead actress and a plot that, whilst based on a timeless classic, was sucked away from its original beauty to a generic destiny story with iffy performances and CGI across the board. And yet it worked for audiences, and with a substantial fanbase online, two years later came the announcement for this very sequel – now headlined by James Bobbin, the man who helped bring the Muppets back into the public awareness with their 2012 and 2014 outings, and former director Tim Burton seated in a producing role – and we're now brought here...where it's received similarly mixed results, thanks mostly to its release being untimely mixed in with the onslaught of news stories based around Johnny Depp. Having a plot based around the survival of a character whose actor isn't exactly being painted in a positive fashion is never a good sign, and with the Disney live action fare being more miss than hit (only The Jungle Book has managed to strive with critics and audiences), is this sequel just a case of bad timing?

Set an unknown number of years later, and Alice (Mia Wasikowska) has made it her duty to be the captain of her father's old ship, and embarking on numerous journeys across the world for the sake of trading products. Upon the return to the homeland she expects to be greeted with open arms, but instead is hit by the news that her mother (Lindsey Duncan) intends on selling the boat to former suitor Hamish Ascot (Leo Bill), and as such this spurs her back to the level of sanity which Underland introduces her to – brought towards the titular Looking Glass by Absolem (the late Alan Rickman). Upon her return, she's greeted with equally terrible news: the Hatter (Johnny Depp) has sunk into a much deeper level of insanity, determined to believe that his family is in fact still alive despite prior information about them dying on the day of the Jabberwocky attack. With Alice being the only one not to have existed in time gone by, she's enforced to use a device known as the Chronosphere to go back in time and rescue the Hatter's family – a factor much more difficult to come by due to the nature of Time (Sacha Baron Cohen) being adamant to hand over the very source of his power and the fact that the ever-mardy Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) is there to witness Alice's return. 

Creating a story for a sequel that no one really wants outside of the studio is always going to be a difficult one, but by branching out to time travel and basing its entire arc around a character who was somewhat unbearable before doesn't exactly lend to some high-quality storytelling. If anything, it's the movie equivalent of jumping the shark (nuking the fridge, maybe?). But that doesn't stop the film from being at all entertaining, as its time-centric tale is in actuality a little more interesting than the trailers would tell. Riddled by story faux pas perhaps, and with a section of the movie being dedicated to Alice back in the real world that serves as nothing else but time-killing (a great pity for Andrew Scott's acting talent to be wasted for that) but arguably more cohesive and enjoyable than the original Alice was six years prior. 

And it could perhaps be noted that the visuals look a little better now that Underland doesn't consist of a dystopian forest landscape. The splash of colour everywhere makes the film look so much more appealing, and whilst the CGI looks perhaps worse than it did before it does still open itself up for some interesting designs and worlds - with the chronosphere's transport vehicle looking similar to that of the bikes from Men in Black 3 and Time's lair suitably being a gigantic clock. And while director James Bobbin is better known for directing felt puppets rather than computer puppets, he seems to have captured a grasp for it okay enough that nothing looks too terrible; even if some elements can be a little shoddy at moments.

Mia Wasikowska returns as the titular Alice with much of the same whimsy as before, upgraded slightly due to how more feminist she comes across as against the male-dominated world which she unfortunately resides in. Her travels in time, however, do come across as more selfish than anything - not helped by the factor that Time actually runs on the power she uses to travel – as she deviates from the original plan to try and stop the Red Queen from ever being evil, and later the moral of the story being semi-forcible explained to the audience as the film draws to a close does suggest a slight dim-wittedness despite how clever a character she's initially introduced as in this very film. Johnny Depp as the Hatter remains as insane and incoherent as before, with the very essence of his character being used as a plot point barely functioning any more than as a reason for Alice to even go on this journey that in the end doesn't exactly require time travel; Helena Bonham Carter seems shoe-horned into the movie for the sake of having an antagonist and raised stakes for the film's final act; sister Anne Hathaway is just as goofy as she was before, except here with a bit more screen presence; Sacha Baron Cohen makes for a fine Time but is hindered by his need to use a disappearing-reappearing accent; the returning voice cast do as fine a job as they can in their limited moments; Rhys Ifans as the Hatter's father is just a standard father figure that brings to mind a cheerier Christopher Lee from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; and finally Lindsey Duncan makes for an extended but iffy return as Alice's mother.

If Alice in Wonderland's duty as a film was to create a darker, gritty iteration of the classic Lewis Carroll tale, it's Alice Through the Looking Glass's duty to ensure that the characters still gave a Disney fairy tale happy ending for a number of its characters. Injecting some of the fun back to the story but being based entirely on a flimsy story, Alice 2 is perhaps not as bad as most would assume from a film as unnecessary as this one but is still flawed in its overall presence; all set dressing and no proper content. 5/10.