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From director James Bobin – who takes over the franchise from Tim Burton, director of 2010’s “Alice In Wonderland” – “Alice Through The Looking Glass” sees Alice (Mia Wasikowska) take the plunge back into Wonderland after a hefty hiatus from the whimsical world. There, she catches up with old friends the White Queen (Anne Hathaway), Tweedledum & Tweedledee (Matt Lucas), the White Rabbit (Michael Sheen) and the Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry), though her most beloved friend the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) is nowhere to be found.
As the distressed friends explain, the Hatter has fallen victim to a terrible depression, devastated by the death of his family some years ago. So of course, it’s up to Alice to travel back in time, save the Hatter’s family and restore him to good health.
To do so, Alice must visit the personification of Time (Sacha Baron Cohen) and “borrow” the Chronosphere – a small, circular device that controls both Time and time (which is one and the same in Wonderland). She does so, and thus begins her journey back in time in a bid to change history and save the Hatter’s family.
Now, the plot runs deeper than that – meanwhile, Time is getting weaker and weaker without his Chronosphere and the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) is furious as she too sought the valuable device – however the plot itself is the downfall of the film. It feels scattered, rushed and seems to lack relation to its Lewis Carroll source material. With so many parallel storylines – we get Alice & the Hatter’s story, the Red Queen’s, Time’s demise, even a few origin stories are jammed in there – the actors get little to do, the plot is all over the place and the story as a whole is too busy to be truly immersive.
But at the end of the day, this is a kid’s film and it will probably satisfy its target audience. It’s easy on the eye – the special effects, costuming and make-up are all wildly eccentric – and boy do the filmmakers pack in moral after moral of the story – always tell the truth, family is the most important thing, you can’t change the past but you can learn from it, girls can do everything that boys can do and more.
While it’s far from a cinematic masterpiece, “Alice Through The Looking Glass” is successful enough as a family film and – bolstered by flashy special effects, big stars and a well-loved franchise to boot – should do well at the box office.
