Alice Through the Looking Glass review – a poor blue screened mess

‘Alice returns to Wonderland and must embark on a race to save her friend the Mad Hatter.’

This belated sequel to the 2010 version of Alice in Wonderland follows Mia Wasikowska’s Alice back into the whimsical world of Underland. Tim Burton, who directed the first, has now swapped seats with Flight of the Conchords (2007) James Bobin. You would think, based on his previous work on the oddball world of The Muppets, that he would be well suited in bringing Lewis Caroll’s vibrant world and bizarre characters to the big screen. What’s presented is a poor attempt at emulating what at best can be described as a mediocre original in the first place.

This time around the story focuses on Alice having to travel back in time to help her friend the Mad Hatter who has fallen strangely ill. Yes, that’s right, we get even more of Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter, who somehow surpasses the first film in making the character even more insufferable.

Most of the original cast return as well, including Helena Bonham Carter’s Red Queen, and we also have a new face in the form of Sacha Baron Cohen’s personification of Time.

Apart from Wasikowska though, who does some good work in the role, all the other characters feel so thinly sketched out it’s hard to care about any of them. I understand that many of the inhabitants of Underland are supposed to be quirky and eccentric but it just comes off as annoying.

Visually, the film is impressive, with great special effects being utilised to create this world and also some standout action scenes like the chase through the oceans of time. Some effects like Carter’s swelled head or Depp’s enlarged eyes can be distracting and obviously look out of place on them, but overall the effects team have done a good job in building this visually striking world.

Unfortunately, what brings Alice Through the Looking Glass down is the story. It uses all the clichés of a time travel plot like wanting to go back to save someone or the main character not listening to reason about the perils of trying to change the past. In most films involving time travel, it’s almost always the protagonist who ends up ruining everything and having to learn some grand life lesson through their mistake. Writer Linda Woolverton makes no exception in her script either, sticking to these over familiar troupes very rigidly, making a very dull and uninteresting plot.

‘Alice Through the Looking Glass, although visually appealing, is unable to live up to the high stakes it presents and get the audience to emotionally connect with this world.’

With underdeveloped characters and a unoriginal story it’s going to be hard to engage with this film and care what happens to these people. There’s an attempt at creating a tragic back story for the Red Queen, trying to make her more sympathetic and add more depth but it just falls flat. The kids might enjoy it but ultimately, Alice Through the Looking Glass follows the basic principle of most sequels and is unable to better or even equal the original instalment, which wasn’t even that great to begin with.