Review of Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016) by Electronick — 06 Jun 2016

After the failings of Burton's rendition of Wonderland I was going into this film expecting to hate it. However I was surprised that it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. There are some notable improvements over the original film for example Wonderland is actually bright and colorful as opposed to the previous film with a dull color palate.

The lead actress actually tries to stay invested this time and gives an attempt to give an emotional performance. Sacha Baron Coen pays as Time and he is fun to watch since he is aware that he is in a mediocre film and decides to just do whatever he wanted with his performance.

The same can be applied to Helen Bahm Carter as well. Unfortunately the main problem with the first film is still present in this one. Said problem is that the script tries to add logic to a source material that is supposed to be the absence of logic.

When they try to add logic to it, the problems with the film start to show. The time travel was easy to follow but it costed the characterization of the Red Queen since it was reveled that she became a mad tyrant after loosing the crown to her sister.

This misses the point of the original source material since the appeal of the character is that she is really a child an adult's body and as a critique on the monarchy of Britain, In this case though the film tries to give her a tragic backstory but it falls flat since it was also revlead that she was responsible for kidnapping the Mad Matter's family and burned his village down.

It is considered difficult to sympathize with her since she is responsible for so much death just because of a simple sibling rivalry. The Chesire Cat lost his charm even more when it shows that he is a child hood friend of the Mad Hatter because he was always the trickster character.

by giving him an allegiance to his friends it ruins the mystery of the original character. There is a noticeable emphasis on the Mad Hatter due to the fact that he is played by Johnny Depp and is the loner which is present in a lot of Burton's films.

Burton may not have directed this film but it does have his blue prints around it. It tries to be dark but it doesn't go far enough like it's predecessor. There is a scene with Alice being in an Asylum which doesn't really go anywhere after Alice escapes making the whole subplot pointless.

To the film's credit it tries to have a moral and an admirable one at that which is that time does take away but it also gives and people should value what it gives. The fact that Alice wanted to give up her ship to help her mother get out of dept would have signified her finally letting go of her past but the lesson wasn't ;earned though because her mother rips the contract anyway.

In conclusion this film would have been better if was an original family film if it didn't have the likeness of the Lewis Carrol novels.