Review of Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016) by Orlando O — 29 May 2016

Time can be the enemy, it can be a thief and steal the remaining moments you have. Alice Through the Looking Glass theme is focused around time, and wastes the time idea on a cliché story. Or the story Linda Woolverton tried to make as a sequel to Alice in Wonderland. The film fails when it depends on the visual effects over a story. It is all about a big visual fest set piece after another with the film. Alice is told many times over, that the past can never be changed. It is one response that is told through other films about time travel. Alice neglects and travels to the past, trying to change a characters certain fate that would lead them to abomination. Like the warning they told Alice, it takes a whole movie for her to learn the lesson.

Alice (Mia Wasikoowska) is now a captain of her own ship. Her father has passed and her ex fiancée wants her to sign over her company for an exchange for them to keep the house. Alice, is neglecting those options, walks away and follows a butterfly into a mirror, leading her back into the fantasy world of wonderland. Meeting her old friends again like White Queen (Anne Hathaway), Tweedies, Chesire Cat, White Rabbit and others. They inform her, the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) has been fallen ill. As he believes his family is still alive, after everyone thought the Red Queen's dragon killed them. Alice visits Time (Sacha Baron Cohen), to seek the chromosphere that can travel through time, for her to save Hatter's family. While she also learns more about the past, about how Red Queen and White Queen became the way they are.

To see these beloved characters return did not have that same fun energy like 2010 Alice in Wonderland film. Feel like Tim Burton was able to handle the characters unlike director James Bobin. Alice Through the Looking Glass does continue the story of Alice, as we learn about Red and White Queen when they were young. How the Red Queen was affected physically and emotionally, and she grew up to be a villain. All these side quests with Alice floating through specific time periods of their lives do not make it a strong story. The visual effects are nice and it is what the film depends on with set pieces to another. The plot is predictable and cliché. Seeing Alice trying to prevent an accident with a character, but fate catches up and something else happens. Or when characters are warned and they still refuse and situations fall apart. Alice learning from the past and setting everything in its rightful place. Alice Through the Looking Glass is a sequel, that has trouble standing up to its predecessor, and does show its struggle of having a fun story. Even the lovable characters were not as entertaining this time around.