While it got mixed reviews, it still made a ton of money. It seems weird that it took six years for a sequel to be made. Usually by movie standards these days, if something sells they make a sequel straight away. The lack of a story idea was probably the problem. This is because, if they do a straight adaptation of the novel, then it would pretty much be a copy of the 1951 version.
However with Through The Looking Glass, we don't have Burton and there is not that much hype or care for it. The director for this latest installment is James Bobin who has directed the last two Muppets films. That alone gave me some hope of enjoyment as Bobin seems able to do successful family films.
Sadly for me, it did work for me and the whole felt unnecessary. The first half does have interesting ideas in its main plots and sub-plots, the performances and writing just was not intriguing enough for the most part.
I was liking the use of time travel though. With the tone of the film looking to suite younger kids, I can see them enjoying that part of the film as I know some other films like to complicate time travel.
By the end of it, it was a by-the-numbers finale that has one cool looking moment. However, it was pretty simple and predictable in the end.
Some films can be highly enjoyable whilst still being predictable. However, Through The Looking Glass was doing enough for me.
The acting on a whole was like watching a pantomime without the crowd participation. Mia Wasikowska was fine as the heroine that is Alice. I would happily jump on the bandwagon for Johnny Depp being annoying in this particular film as Mad Hatter.
Anne Hathaway was the most annoying. I know this particular actress is well hated. However, this is the only film that I have seen that in. Sacha Baren Cohen was fine as Time and definitely suited the tone well. However, his costume looked a bit too outrageous.
Stephen Fry as Cheshire Cat was still great to see. He was my big highlight of the first one and everything still worked for me in this one.
Alan Rickman is back as Absolem in what his final ever performance and give a fitting tribute in the end credits. None of the other performance were particularly memorable, not even Helena Bonham Carter.
My main positives to come out of this were the amazing visual effects, flashy costumes and romping score. They were pleasing eye-candy, but enough to distract me from the uninteresting story.
One scene I did like was involving a tea party involving the usual people Mad Hatter, March Hare and Dormouse. It was a nice nostalgic moment that I felt to look more the tea party in the animated original rather than the gloomy 2010 version.
In conclusion, the movie for me had a hard time prove that this sequel needed to exist. The story was just not either interesting nor executed well. It was pretty basic stuff and it did not grip me that much. A good comparison would be Oz The Great And Powerful. It has potential and you can see it on screen. Sadly the tone was more suited for younger kids and there is little for the adults to get involved with.
Like I said, I did like the use of the time travel aspect of the story and the visuals and costume nice to look at. But a lot of the problems from the previous one have returned in the sequel. While it does look really nice and bright, there is just too much green screen. It would look more impressive if they the gave some physicality.
It felt silly to every character that we all know an origins and a story arch. Do we really need to know what Tweedledee and Tweedledum were like as kids, or how the Mad Hatter became a hatter, mad, what is upbringing was and his relationship with his parents?
The only one that seem interesting was the history with the White Queen and the Red Queen. Sadly that is not the main part of the story and is mainly a sub-plot in the second half of the film.
It was always going to be an uphill struggle. I was not expecting it to be like a novel as the animated Alice In Wonderland pretty much had all the main stories from Trough The Looking Glass in that adaptation. So I think with they did out of it, it was ok. But I think the budget would have been spent better and something else.
Rating: 6/10
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